The Treasure Planet Series
by SweetBrownie
Summary: The continuation of "The Flint Legacy", this series tells of smaller adventures and what the characters are doing until the next big adventure. (Rating T)
1. Chapter 1: Atlantis City, Part 1

**Act 1**

Jim is into his fourth and final year in the Interstellar Academy. He knows when the final exams is, which is in a few months, and he also know exactly what he is doing as a project. He is to make an boat, completely on his own. It is a step up from the solar surfer he built when he was eight, and it seems to be the perfect time to do it.

When it comes to the final exams, one of the rules for it seems to be for it to be a group project. He have the perfect person to ask for help; Jeremy D. Walkup.

"So, where should we begin?" Jeremy asks.

"We should begin with the hull," Jim answers. "And for that we need wood."

"That is easy; the academy have a lot of it in storage."

So they go get some wood, and starts to build the hull in one of the acadamy's workshops. It is maybe the hardest work to get the hull right, but Jim thinks that, with some effort, they will get it right in their first try. It will also maybe be the most timeconsuming part of their project.

As they work on the hull they usually talk, and that can be of varying things. "So, have you heard that Silver have broken out of jail?" Jeremy asks a few weeks in, as he hammers in a nail into the woodwork.

"Yeah," Jim says as he use some sandpaper on a piece of wood. "And I say that it was quite unavoidable; he doesn't like to be caged in."

"So, you know if he have gotten back to pirating?"

"No, not according to the letters he have sent me. And I'm glad if he really doesn't get himself back into his old ways. I don't want him to get himself into trouble, even when I know that he maybe can't help it sometime."

After a month or so they are done with the hull, but they need a sail, an engine and some other parts to make it flyworthy. Luckily they get to hear that the academy are to throw away some solar boards that doens't work. They get a hold of them and use them for spareparts to make an homemade engine and a rocket strong enought to propell the hull. They stitch smaller sails from the boards into a bigger sail, and mounts it onto the hull, and voila, it is ready for a testride.

It flies beautifully, and in good time, too. They have finished only a week short for the exams.

* * *

In the meantime Silver is in league with Daniel Crow, and the two of them are on a stealing spree thru the galaxy. He can't really help it, he is a pirate after all. He have been it all his life. He lies about it in his messages to Jim, as Silver can't bear the thought that the boy thinks anything else than an evil-turned-good Long John Silver.

Crow and Silver, together with a small crew, have worked themselves to a big mountain of treasures. Amongst them is the jewel of the amazons that the two of them have talked about in prison. And it is only made possible with a little device that they have scavaged from the treasure planet. With it they are able to come without a warning and go away without a trace, just like in the legends of the great Nathaniel Flint.

"Good thing that you remembered where it was, Silver," comments Daniel. "Too bad that it doesn't work that well. Doesn't takes us to the right place every time."

"I think I know someone that might be able to fix it," says Silver with a small grin. "And I think that he gets time to come visit us pretty soon."

"Are you sure? It took us about two years and a half to make it working as it does now."

"Yeah, I'm sure. I have the letter ready to send for him." On this Silver brings out a envelope with the letter inside of it, and waves a little with it. "In a week or so he will surely get it, and after a week after that he will surely come here." Silver puts away the envelope into his pocket. "Only one thing before he comes; I like you and the others to be away when he comes. In my letters I have told him that I have stopped with the pirate life. If he comes here and see you he might suspect something."

* * *

Jim looks at the letter that he have is in his hands with a small smile. He reads it in his room at the Interstellar Academy with the door locked, as he doesn't want anyone to walk into what he is doing and to ask questions. In his last letter to Silver he have told everything of his final exams project, and that he have scored almost as high as he could.

 _"Ahoy, Jimbo_

 _I am fine as always. Living my life as best as I can, and that might be a little hard when trying to avoid the authorities. But they have not found me yet. I'm living in a small hideout of mine, and I think that I am quite safe here._

 _Congrats on passing the final exams. To have built an own boat must have been hard. And that it works as well is astonishing._

 _I have an own project that I have been working on. I like you to come and take a look at it, I think that you will be impressed. I don't want to say what it is yet, as I want for it to be a surprise._

 _With regards_

 _Long John Silver"_

With the letter Jim have gotten a set of coordinates. He will of course go there, and what better way is there to go there in the boat he have built himself. He will pack everything he needs for the journey; money, food, clothes and tools. Jim can't barely contain himself, both as he want to see his old friend again and that he wonders what this project is.

* * *

"What is this?" Jim asks in wonder as he sees the device. It is as big as a boat and seems to work as a projector of sorts, but instead to show pictures it shows different places as clear as day. "It is almost like the big door back at treasure planet." At the look Silver gives him Jim gives a small gasp. "It is the door from treasure planet, isn't it? But only set to project a smaller opening."

"Right on the spot, Jimbo. I went back for it while you went to school. I thought that it would come in handy when on the run from the police. But I have a bit of problem with it."

"Well. Tell me all about it, and I'll see what I can do."

And that Silver does. When he's done Jim scratches himself on the head. "I think I know the problem, but I can't be sure; I'm better at engines. But let me take a look at it and we'll see."

After a few days of tinkering, pottering, thinking and swearing Jim thinks that he have gotten it. But it took alot of grease and sweat to get it working as it should. And after a bit of cheering and a big pat on the back Jim goes back home to get himself ready to go on his first mission in the Interstellar Fleet. And in the meantime Silver calls back Danile Crow and the small crew.

"So?" Crow asks when he comes back. "Could he fix it?"

"Yes, he could," Silver answers with shining pride. "The machine is working as it should."

"Thank God for that," Daniel sighs. Then he smiles cunningly. "You know, we could use a boy like that in our little gang. What if we should enlist him?"

At this Silver gets a little sour and testy. "We are to do nothing of the sort. Jimbo are to join the Interstellar Fleet, and that's the end of it."

"And waste such potential? Silver, with such a talent we could surely be able to steal the biggest treasures there is in the world."

"Don't you think that I haven't asked him to come with me? He turned me down. Daniel. He rather want to go with the Interstellar Fleet than to come with us and start stealing. So when I say no, I mean no."

* * *

"Oh, Jim, I'm so proud of you," Sarah says and hugs his son. "That you have finnished your training on the Interstellar Fleet, and now to get on your first assignment. It's so exiting!"

"Yeah, it really is, mom," Jim speaks and hugs back. "And have you guessed who's going to be the second-in-command?"

Sarah takes a step back, and holds him on an arms lenght. Her expression is shocked, but of a happy kind. "Don't tell me... they made you a lieutenant?"

"No, no, I didn't go that kind of education," Jim waves away with a smile. "I'm the technician. I mean Jeremy, the guy that saved us three years ago."

"Oh, him," sighs Sarah, a bit dissapointed. But then she smiles, as she thinks that it is fine with a technician as a son. She will always be proud of her son, as he have made the something great of his life. "I'm really glad for you, Jim."

"Me, too." They share a quiet moment together, where they just look at each other with affection as they share a deep, platonic love to each other. Then a wail interrupts them; one of Amelia's daughters wants attention and wants it _now_.

"Oh, duty calls," Sarah sighs and walks away.

Since the second fire of the Benbow Inn she have take to become a nanny and housekeeper for the Dopplers, as some kind of arrangement for letting her stay with them. That way Delbert and Amelia can spend more time on their work and with eachother. Not that they doesn't love their children enough to spend time with them - they love their four children more than life itself - but sometime it gets too much for them to take care of _four_ kids.

"Anyway, Jim, I guess it is best for you to go and pack your bags," Sarah says as she walks back and fourht with the four-year-old girl in her harms, in a try to soothe her.

"Mom, can't I do it later; I am to go to the ship the day after tomorrow."

"I don't want you to forget anything," Sarah says in a motherly tone.

But as Jim is to get going with his bags he stops, and turns around to walk over to his mother. "Mom, I know that you miss the inn. And I promise that I will get the money to build it back up again." With that he kisses her on her forehead, and thereafter leaves to pack his bags.

* * *

Jim is home at the Doppler's resident and packs his bags. Since the second fire of the Bendbow Inn the Doppler's have let him and his mother live at their house. It is the night before he is to depart to the ship he have been appointed to, an explorationship called RLS Lucky Star. He is about done when he hears a noise, and suddenly there is a triangular hole in one of the room's four walls. And thru it walks a man Jim never have seen before.

Jim recognizes the doorway, the portal that so suddenly have appeared in the wall. It is none other than the one from treasure planet, the one that he himself have fixed about a week ago. But what have happened for it to come into the hands of this man, this Daniel Crow? Have Silver been attacked or something?

"Ah, James Hawkins," the man begins. "A pleasure to meet you. Name's Daniel Crow."

"Do... I know you?" Jim asks with a hesitant voice, and carefully takes a few steps back.

"No, you don't. But I know you. Silver have been speaking so much about you."

That perks Jim's interest. "Silver? You know Silver?"

"Know? Lad, I work with him. And I have a proposition for you from the both of us."

"And what might that be?"

"To join our crew, a fine pirate pack, and help us plunder the galaxy. Think on it, lad, with your knowledge we could be the most successful pirates since the time of Nathaniel Flint. It will get you much richer much faster than on a puny pay that the Interstellar Fleet provides."

Jim can't believe what he is hearing. "Silver? A pirate? Since when? As I know it, he have turned away from stealing."

Daniel is on the verge of laughing, as he can't believe that the boy is so gullible as to believe that. "And you believed him? Once a pirate, always a pirate. He couldn't stay away from the pirate life even if he wanted."

"No, I don't believe you. Silver would never lie to me."

"But he does. If you want proof, you can only walk thru the gate and I show you the loot that we have gathered. You can even ask him yourself. He is on the other side, sleeping away."

Jim ponders for a bit. Is it really wise to go thru the gate with this stranger? He peeks thru the portal to see if he can catch a glance of his friend from this angle, but Silver is nowhere to be found. How can Jim be sure that Daniel tells the truth? "I don't think I should follow you anywhere," Jim says in the end. "If it is true, then he will tell me when I ask him in my next letter."

This makes Daniel visibly dissapointed. He have thought that the boy would jump on the chance to see Silver, but it turns out that he is wrong. But then he turns his back to the boy in anger. "As you wish, lad. But I'm telling you, Silver is a pirate. He have been stealing and looting all the while you were to school. But, remember, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me, as I am wherever Silver is." And with that Daniel crow walks thru the gate, and the portal dissapears into thin air.

Jim stares on the part of the wall that the gate have been. He begins to wonder if the offer have been real, and if the man and the portal have really been there. It all seems so surreal. Then he starts to wonder if piracy really is the better option if he wants money fast. He have promised his mother to get her inn back up, and that costs a smaller fortune.

But in the end Jim decides that it is the Interstellar Fleet for him; he have begun to walk on the right path and he will not go back to breaking the law. But he promises than he will not rest until his mother's inn is built up again.

* * *

 **Act 2**

The pen hovers in the air, as if it was just as unsure as Jim to put something onto the paper. The boy have tried for fifteen minutes now to write the first few words of the letter to Silver, but he just can't. He know what he want to ask, if John really have become a pirate again or if Daniel Crow have lied, but Jim can't seem to find the right words for it.

Jim puts down the pen and leans back in the chair that he is sitting in. "Unbelieveble," he mutters to himself. This is the first time he have got such a hard time to write to his old friend. He wants to put the question in such a way so that Silver can't really deny it. But then again, what if John really isn't a pirate?

Jim thinks on it for a while, then he decides that he will hold off this letter for a while, so that he can think more on what to write. Maybe after he have come back from his first mission with the Interstellar Fleet.

* * *

Jim stands on the pier and looks in awe on the exploration ship he is assigned to. It is a bit smaller than RLS Legacy, but with just as many sails and with just as big rockets, and surely therefor a little faster than her sister ship.

When he is done admiring her he gets onboard. Well on the ship he is greeted by a familiar face. "Hello there, Jim," Jeremy says with a proud smile, in his new red uniform.

"Jerry!" Jim cries, and offers his hand. "Glad to meet you."

Jeremy accepts the hand gladly. "So, are you ready to go onto a new adventure?"

"If I am. You know where we are going?"

"Our first mission is to find the sunken city of Atlantis."

At that Jim is surprised. He knows that this is not only their first mission, but that of the ship as well. She is newly made, and this is going to be her maiden voyage. What a splendid first mission! "And is there any signs to where it is?"

"A recent finding suggest as much," confirms Jeremy.

"Cool."

"As cool as it can get."

"Mr. Walkup," a female voice breaks in. The two of them turns to see a woman close in on them. "Is everyone onboard?"

Jeremy stands up a bit straighter and clears his throat. "Yes, caprain. Jim is the last one to come onto the ship."

The woman, the captain, turns to Jim and smiles. "Captain Cassity Martinsson at your service," she presents herself. "Welcome onboard, Mr. Hawkins, the RLS Lucky Star." With that she walks away and starts to bark orders to the other crewmen to get the ship into the air and on the right course.

"So," Jim says and turns back to Jeremy. "I just want to put one question before I go to my post. Is my boat onboard like I asked of you?"

"Onboard and ready to be used," Jeremy answers, grinning all the while. "I have to say, the captain was very impressed when she saw it."

"Good," Jim grins back. "Well, Jerry, I let you to get this ship up and about."

* * *

The RLS Lucky Star heads on towards new adventures. On their first exploration they are to voyage to the far end of the galaxy in search of the legendary Atlantis City, a city that have been lost for several hundred years. On the journey there Jim fixes many things onboard the ship, little problems as well as big ones, and in doing so impresses the captain quite much of his know-how.

The journey takes some time, so Jim and Jeremy take on to play different cardgames and talk on different subjects, like their plans for the future and their luck of life. But there is other subjects between them as well.

"Did you know that captain Cassity is a good friend to captain Amelia?" Jeremy asks as he looks over his cards one day.

"No, I didn't," Jim answers with a bit of surprise. "Have they been friends for long?"

"Yes. They was on the same class in the Interstellar Academy, and have worked together on many missions. They are close, they are basically sisters."

A month goes by, where the only thing that Jim does is either to fix broken stuff or to play cards with his good friend Jeremy. But in the end they come to their destination, a waterfilled planet with only a few small ilands. The RLS Lucky Star goes in for a landing and comes down onto the water with barely a splash. Then there is only to maneuver to the coordinates that they have been provided. But there is only one problem; once they´re there they can't see any ruins.

"Where is it?" one in the crew asks.

"Underwater, obviously," answers Jeremy.

"But how are we to get to it?" asks the same crew member. The whole crew looks at each other in a clueless fashion, unsure how they are to resolve this problem.

"I think I can fix it," Jim perks up.

"That is what I expect of you," captain Cassity says. She turns to him, and he turns to her. "Do what you have to do to get us down there."

And he does just that. Jim takes his tools and some scrap metal, takes them to his homemade boat and starts to work on his homemade boat. He takes away the rockets and adds a pair of propellers in their place, then he puts a roof on top of it and makes sure that it is waterproof.

He also puts on a small, waterproof door, so that people can get in and out of it. In the end he puts on a small window in the front of the boat, so that the driver can see where to go. After Jim's hard work for two whole days the boat have been transformed to a small submarine.

On the third day they tests the submarine, and it works just as it should. It can propel itself both forward and backwards, and it doesn't leak a single drop when they test to dive with it.

Captain Cassity sends away a three man strong away team to look for the ruins of Atlantis City, where none are Jim. But Jeremy are going with the three men, to lead the expedition and for captain Cassity to test his ability to be in command.

In the meantime there is a bit of talk between some of the crew on how they will part on the treasure from Atlantis City fairly. When hearing this discussion Jim remembers his talk with Daniel Crow, on how little he is going to get as a pay from the Interstelar Fleet. _Seems that he was wrong,_ Jim ponders. _Surely the treasures from Atlantis will be a great pay, even when divided among the crew._ But he couldn't have been more wrong.

But after a lot of chitter-chatter about it the captain calls for a meeting. "Most of the treasure will be handed over to the Interstellar Fleet," she tells them. "To be handled with care and to be turned to the rightly owners like museums. Some of the treasure will go to the crew who found it, but not more than necessary."

This brings many groans of dissaointment from the crew. "How much is necessary?" asks Jim after some thought.

"Not much, but enught as pay for your troubles."

Three hours Jeremy and the other three crewmembers are gone, and when they come back they are still in good health as nothing have come to harm them down there. They tell that there is a ruin down there, but that it doesn't seem to be the ruins of Atlantis City. It seems to be a watch tower or something of that kind. But in their search of clues they found a tablet with some kind of scribbles on it, which they turned over to the historical experts that they brought along to decipher the text.

"So, how did it go?" Jim asks Jeremy.

"We had some troubles with the submarine," Jeremy answers honestly. "But apart from that it went well. You should have seen it, Jim, it was amazing."

After two days of deciphering the tablet the experts comes up with a new heading, a way to the real Atlantis and not some kind of watchtower. The RLS Lucky Star starts to head that way, plowing thru the water much like a ordenary ship. In the meantime Jim tries to write that letter he tried to write before he got onboard.

 _"Hi, Silver_

 _I have been out and seen things, as I have been on my first assignment. You can never believe where we went to. Atlantis! It was a blast. The ship's name is RLS Lucky Star, and it's captain is Cassity Martinsson. And the second-in-command is Jeremy Walkup, the boy who saved us from Maddox three years ago._

 _But there is something that happened before I went on my mission. Someone who claims to know you visited me, a man called Daniel Crow. He told me that you have gone back to being a pirate. Why haven't you told me?! I'm not mad, Silver, I'm just suprised, that's all._

 _Anyway, I like to ask some advice. I like to build up Benbow Inn again, and that costs a lot. But as it turns out the Interstellar Fleet doesn't give much of the treasures they find to the crew._

 _I will have to work for a long time, if not for several years, before I'm able to pay for the inn. I have promised my mom to built it up again, and I think that she deserves to have it as quick as possible._

 _Therefor I only want to ask you if you think that it is better if I turn to pirating instead. I know that you asked me to come with you all these years ago, on our way home from treasure planet, and I begin to think that I made the wrong decision._

 _With regards_

 _James Hawkins"_

Jim looks the letter over, and wonders if he shouldn't rewrite the whole thing. But he don't. He folds it together and puts it amongs his belongings. Maybe he is to just send it as it is when he comes home again. He doesn't intend to say anything about this to anyone, especially not Sarah, Delbert, Amelia or B.E.N.

As they come closer to the second location they get the little submarine ready. An away team is choosen, and this time captain Cassity takes command of the small group, and leaves Jeremy to be in controll of the RLS Lucky Star. Jim is among the choosen ones, as his job will be to keep an eye on the submarine and see to it that it runs smoothly.

They go down to the deep below, and what they find astounds them. The big ruins of Atlantis City looks almost newly made in the protective waters of the deep ocean. The buildings are ritchly ornate, carved out from the face of a big underwater mountain.

"How beautiful it is," Cassity breathes and looks at the buildings with big eyes. "I have been on many explorations, and I have rarely seen such fairness. I wonder how it looks inside."

"Maybe we can take a look," Jim says and points to an opening to what looks like a cave or a passage in the mountainface. "We can surely squeeze thru there."

They goes ahead and steers the submarine into the opening. It turns dark pretty quick, but luckily Jim have thought on that and have mounted a pair of headlights onto the submarine.

"Carefully does it," Jim wisphers as he sits at the helm and tries to steer the submarine without blundering into a wall.

But as they explore an little further into the cave the light from the outside is suddenly completly gone. It turns out that the entrance becomes blocked by some rocks. They are trapped, and with limited oxygen they will not make it for long if they can't another way out.


	2. Chapter 2: Atlantis City, Part 2

**Act 1**

They have no other choice than to go deeper into the cave. They have no idea if it is the right thing to do, if there even is another way out. "What if we never get out of here," Jim asks out loud. "What if I never get to see my mother again?"

"No such talk on my watch, Mr. Hawkins," Cassity orders and gives him an assuring smile. "I bet that this cave leads somewhere."

As it turns out, she's right; the cave leads to a room. And not to any room, but to a showy residence that can only have one kind of inhabitans in it; royalty. Even after all this time it is evident; the delicious colours that still covers the walls, the residues of fine silk that hangs from the roof, the select choice of furniture and the roomy livingspace. It all tells of a family of higher nobility, if not royalty.

"It seems that we found some kind of entrance to the ruins itself," Cassity speaks as she observes the different objects outside from the small window in the front. "The passage we entered might even have been an emergency exit for the regal family."

As they circles the room they spot several items of big value, amongst them historical objects like sculptures and different boxes with fine markings on them. There is also different valuables, as there is at least one jewel-case in there. But it was not the only thing that competed for the visiters attention; the remains of what Jim and the others can only guess to be the old residents litters the floor, with the remnants of their expensive-looking clothes still on them.

"I wonder what happened to them," Jim says as they look on the grim sight. "Why did the city even go to the bottom of the sea?"

"That might be a mystery that we never will get the answer to," Cassity answers.

They have no thought to retrieve any of the many items that they have seen in the room, as their priority right now is to find an exit. And they are running against the clock, as the oxygen in the submarine can't last forever. With every breath they take they let out more and more of the deadly gas carbon dioxide.

The submarine fits perfectly thru the doorway, and as they get out of the livingquarters they find themselves a corridor, filled with different doors on both sides. As they pass them they see that one door leads to what must be some servant quarters, another to what must be a kitchen, a third to what must be some kind of recreational room. There are even rooms that they have no idea what they where used to.

As they leave the royal quarters further and further behind them, Jim can't stop thinking on that they have to give most of it up to the Interstellar Fleet. "Captain," he begins with caution. "Do we really need to give so much of the treasures to the fleet?"

"Of course we do. It is explorations like this that pays some of the big outgoings that the fleet have. We need to give them everything we can spare."

"But can't just a little more go to the crew? It is they that do most of the hard work." The crewmembers that have come with them nods at this last sentence, as they know how hard their jobs can be sometimes.

"No buts, Mr. Hawkins. These are the rules. As many goldcoins, jewels, diamonds and emeralds as possible are to go to the fleet, and the objects of historical values are to be turned in to museums for a fee. That's that." Jim grows angry over this, leans back to sulk and gets quiet. And maybe it is for the best, as the engine starts to act up.

* * *

Daniel Crow don't know when he have met such a bright kid. To be able to fix the portal at his young age is astounding. Too bad that he seems to be a bit untrusting to strangers, but maybe that is something to be understood. Daniel wouldn't follow anyone thru the portal either; who knows what might wait on the other side.

To have such a boy in the crew would be a dream come true. But he have his ways. It is evident that Daniel can't persuade the boy directly, Crow did see it in the lad's eyes that he remains uncertain if a stranger comes with such a offer. But if someone Jim knows comes with it, then maybe. Silver have told Crow that Jim's mother have lost an inn and that the boy seems to want to build it up again. That is a hard thing to do on a pay from the Interstellar Fleet.

But as a pirate the boy can gather so much more, and build that inn much sooner. That must put some doubt into the boy's mind in staying in the fleet. If Silver is to persuade the boy into becoming a pirate it might as well work. The two are good friends, they trust each other as much as if they were family.

Daniel smiles to himself. He have been a pirate all his life, and with the portal he will be amongst the most famous. He have found the most skilled pirates he could find already. Dennis, for example, is the best sniper there is to find that isn't in any kind of military. Then there is Maria, who knows how to lock pick any kind of locks and to open up any kind of safe.

There is also Greg, who is an excellent assassin, extra skilled in the use of dual swords. The brothers Sammy and Drew are great in the engine room, to take care of the motors. And lastly, there is Silver, a cyborg with many uses. And soon he will also have the boy who can fix pretty much anything.

To think, to have the best group of pirates there is, all of them working together to steal all the worlds valuables. The world is to be amazed of their success. All will know their names, and quiver in their boots when they understand that Crow's men are the ones that are coming.

But such a group needs a name. A name that is worthy of this fame that they will get. Daniel thinks for a moment, and in the end he comes to think of the perfect name to the group. The Crows. Yes, The Crows sounds perfect. It is a great name, as it is the name of his own last name. And crows are usually depicted to be delighted in anything that shines. What could be better?

* * *

If Silver have picked up anything on his adventures and journeys thru his lifetime it is to measure up the odds against him. He have done it with countless times when on the hunt for the treasure planet, and he have done it yet a few more times when he was on the run from Maddox Flint. He have done it a few more times when teaming up with Daniel Crow, too.

To measure up the odds is just what he does when he hears of the Interstellar Fleet's voyage to the Atlantis City, and it wasn't hard to make a decision wether to attack or not now when they have gotten the portal ready to go.

"In the outer rims of the galaxy, you say?" Silver asks after he takes another swing of his big pint. They have just bought some of the finest beer there is of some of the treausers that they have been stealing, and the whole crew are now feasting on in their hideaway. Silver is sitting at a table with one of the crewmen, away from the others.

"Yes, that's what the people in the bar told me," the Dennis, he himself armed with half a pint of the same beer. Silver can't keep himself from thinking of someone else that was good with rumors in bars and wateringholes. Kingsley are sorely missed, but he is of the past now. "The Interstellar Fleet are at the planet where the rumoured Atlantis City is. I even got some coordinates, but who knows how much is true."

"Well, treasure planet was true, wasn't it."

"Yes, it was," Daniel buts in and takes a seat. "We should make us ready to intercept them on their way home, when they are surely loaded up with all treasure from that sunken city." He turns to Dennis. "You can go, I need to talk with Silver alone for a moment."

"What is it you want?" John wonders when Dennis have gone.

"It is about Jim." That makes Silver sit up a little straighter and to give Crow all his attention. "Now, I know that you have said no about recruiting him, but I must insist upon it. Just think on everything we can do with him in our team."

"No," is the only answer he gets.

"But if you only hear me out-"

"No, Crow. That boy have a brilliant career in front of him in the Insterstellar Fleet, and it would only be cruel to make him choose between that and a life of piracy."

"Is it really. Think about it. As a pirate he will become one of the most famous there is. We have even gotten some fame thanks to the portal, and it now works perfectly with the help from that boy. But in the Interstellar Fleet he will only be stuck in a engine room or in a workshop to fix whatever the captain tells him to. He will never get any fame that way. I have to wonder, does he even get a 'thank you' for his troubles?"

That makes Silver think, and finds that there might be something in what Daniel says. "Maybe..." he wisphers¨to himself and scratches his shin.

"With us he will be used to his full potential, Silver, _and_ he will get to know just how gratefull we are. It is with us that he belongs."

* * *

Jim and the others goes here, there, and back again in what seems to be a labyrinth of corridors, rooms and courtyards. But in the end of the day they finally find a way out, and not a moment too soon. Their air in the submarine have increasingly gotten harder to breathe as no new oxygen is provided.

They speed to the surface, and well there they hurry to open the hatch. They almost claws at it in the attempt to get out of the submarine, and when they have finally opened the hatch they drink in the fresh air for dear life. Once they have gotten their bearings back they get onboard the RLS Lucky Star, where nothing have changed while they have been gone.

Jim is ordered to make a few modifications to the submarine, so that it have two griphooks to take hold of things and bring them with it. It takes some time of tweaking and turning, and he estimates that it is going to take a day or two; he have to build the griphooks from scratch and also get them mounted on the submarine. Meanwhile Jeremy usually sits by him to keep him company. The two generally talk to each other as well while Jim is working.

"Jeremy?" Jim says suddenly that evening after a moment of silence.

Jeremy looks up at Jim from his cardgame that he plays for himself. "Hmm?"

"Do you have a problem with getting such a low pay from the fleet?"

"No, I'm just glad to be exploring."

The answer is said in such an honest way that that it makes Jim pause for a bit in his work. Jim thinks on it for a moment, and wonders himself if he shouldn't just be glad to explore, too. But if he is to just be glad with what he have at the moment it will take forever before his mother will get back the inn.

Jim feels torn between what he really wants, which is to explore, and what is expected of him, which is to bring home money enough to build the inn.

In the end the griphooks are in place, and the transfer of the treasures from the ruins of Atlantis to the cargoholds in the ship can begin. After they are done carrying everything of value they could find they goes down into the ruins again to take pictures and take notes, to both have something to Cassity's repport and to have something more to give the museums, that, too, for a fee.

* * *

 **Act 2**

It is night, but that doesn't mean that everyone is asleep. Silver, Crow and their small crew gets ready to leave, and prepares their small ship. The portal gets ready, too, and soon they are fit to go. They are to steal all the treasures that RLS Lucky Star carries. They fly off, and with the help of the portal they are at none moment flying near their lair and in the next they are several hundred leagues away, in pursuit of the RLS Lucky Star.

"Dennis, take the guards out," Crow orders when they come closer. Because it is night they expect only a few guards on the upper deck of the other ship.

Dennis takes up his sniper rifle, a homemade, specially modified rifle of his own taste, and takes aim. He fires three shots for three targets, the rifle barely making any sound, and then there is no more guards. He nods to Daniel, and gives a sign that it is all clear.

"Good," Crow comments and smiles. "Now we board the ship and take what we're after." They quietly pulls up by the RLS Lucky Star. Crow, Silver, Maria and Greg gets onboard, careful not to make any loud sounds. "Silver," Daniel says. "Take the lead and show us the cargo."

Silver nods. He knows the layout of the ship pretty good, as it seems to be much the same as the RLS Legacy. Stealthily they get to the cargo. Luckily they doesn't meet up with anyone in the crew, so they start to stuff their pockets with all the gold and jewels that they can find. It is more than they can carry in one go, so they begin to go back and forth to load their ship with all the valuebles.

* * *

Jim can't sleep. He can't stop thinking on his little dilemma. He twists and turns in his hammock, and feels like it have only gone moments when in reallity it have gone hours. He finally desides that it is useless to try to sleep and gets up to take a walk thru the ship. Maybe he is to get out on top deck for some fresh air. He dress on something warm, as it surely is cold outside, and then heads out from the room where almost everyone in the crew is sleeping.

He wanders for a bit inside of the ship, he even goes to check on his homemade submarine, before he gets out on top deck for a bit of fresh air. That's when he notice for the first time that something is wrong. There is a small, unknown ship that goes alongside the RLS Lucky Star, and the three guards are nowhere to be found at first. After a little seach Jim notice that the guards aren't gone, but lies dead on the wodden floor.

His blood runs cold at the sight, as he now understands what is going on. They are being boarded by pirates. Memories of when RLS Legacy was taken over by pirates, with Silver in the lead, comes to his mind. He is just to run to the captain's quarters as a sound catch his attention.

"Jimbo?" a voice that Jim knows all too well says behind him. He turns to see Silver, shocked to see him, to stand there a few meters from him.

"Silver?" Jim says, also shocked to see his old friend on the ship. Then the boy gets a bit hesitent, as he starts to understand what is happening. "What is going on?" Maybe this Daniel Crow have told the truth when he told that Silver have gone back to pirating.

"Eh... well... it is like this, Jimbo-"

"You have started to steal things again, haven't you?" Jim interrupts.

It takes a few minutes for John to answer, but when he well do answer he sounds a bit ashamed. "Yes." He would never have told Jim that he have gone back to his old ways, as he likes to appear as a good man in Jim's eyes. But once a pirate, always a pirate. It is hard to change ones ways, it really is. And besides, what else is Silver to do all days?

Jim isn't angry that Silver have gone back to stealing, he really isn't. Instead he understands that it might be hard to stop. What he is really angry about is that Silver haven't really spoken about it to him. Silver have lead him to believe that he is a changed man, and that he have given up pirating. What else haven't he told him?

That is when it occurs to him, that Silver have thought on stealing the treasures of Atlantis, and haven't told Jim anything about it. That would leave nothing, absolutely NOTHING, to Jim or the others, as their pay are to come from the very treasures that Silver is stealing right now. And that makes Jim grow even angrier.

"I can't believe you, Silver. You have not only witheld the truth from me, but you have planned to steal from me, too."

"Now, listen here, Jimbo. I didn't know that you would be on this ship, honestly I didn't. If only you have told me that you would go to Atlantis as your first assignment-"

"If _I_ have told _you_?" That only makes Jim even more angry, and he is now so enraged that he takes some step forward towards the pirate. "What about _you_ telling _me_ the truth?"

"Well, I... I didn't want to worry you, or being a bad influence on you."

"That's doesn't cut it, Silver. Friends don't keep secrets from each other, I thought that was clear." Jim is so angry that he doesn't see clear, and he can't really precieve the world arround him. And that might be the worst thing he could have done, as the other pirates starts to come up on the top deck now. With their pockets and armfuls filled with treasures they stop when they see the argument that is playing out in front of them.

One of them takes a step forward. "Silver, we need to go," the pirate says. That is when Jim snaps out of it, and finally sees that he seems to be surrounded by a small group of strangers. And one of them, the one that have spoken, he recognizes as Daniel Crow. But he doesn't say anything about it, as he is to angry to speak to or about them.

"I'm sorry, Jimbo," Silver says after a while, with real sorrow in his voice. "I didn't intend to steal from you. You have to believe me."

Jim shakes his head in disappointment. "Just go, Silver. Just leave. Right now I am too angry with you to care what you do."

John looks at him for a moment in sadness, and then turns to the ship he have arrived in and starts to go towards it. "Let's go, guys," he says in a tired voice. With that the pirates leaves, with their cargo filled with the stolen treasures.

Jim stands there and looks at them ride away. Then suddenly the portal is there to welcome them to their hideaway.

* * *

Crow didn't know that the boy is assigned to RLS Lucky Star, and it seems that neither did Silver. That might be good information if Daniel wants to try to get Jim into his team. But that is to be done another time. Right now Crow is to be glad for what he have, and it seems that his team can cope as it is at the moment. But someday, in the next few years, he will to successfully recruit that lad.

* * *

Captain Cassity is furious. "Damn pirates. All that work for nothing. What now are we to give to the crew or the Interstellar Fleet?"

"We have still the pictures," tries Jeremy.

"Well, yes, I guess we have something to take back with us, but the feemoney we are to get from that is barely enought to go around the crew, and surely not enought to satisfy the Interstellar Fleet." Then Cassity turns to Jim and stares him down. "Are you sure that you took the right names of the pirate in charge? Was it really Daniel Crow?"

"Yes," Jim answers. He have calmed down a bit from the reveal of Silver being a pirate, and have realized that he cares about John enough that he doesn't want to see the pirate back in jail. Not yet, at least. So he will keep all information about him secret for now, at least until he knows what to do next.

"So," Jeremy begins after a short moment of silence. "What now?"

"I guess that the only thing we can do is to get back to the Interstellar Fleet to present what we have and to tell about the pirate attack," Cassity says. "There is nothing else we can do."

* * *

The Interstellar Fleet's leaders decides, once upon RLS Lucky Star's return, that the crew is to get the money from the feemoney of the pictures. As the crew must have something for their trouble, the leaders thinks it is for the best.

After the return to the Interstellar Fleet's headquarters Jim decides that he is to get home and visit Sarah. The letter he have written to Silver before the two of them met is thrown away, as what is written upon it is useless now. All thoughts of becoming a pirate is gone for the moment, but it will resurface once again very soon. Once Jim is home at the Dopplers' house he gives what he have been paid to his mother, and promises yet again that he is to work long and hard to get her the inn back.


	3. Chapter 3: Daniel Crow's past

30 years prior

The bar is full of people, so the barkeeper have plenty to do. His son, Daniel, is supposed to help, but a story told by one of the guests captivates him.

"And then, you see," the man continues. "Blackbeard went into the asteroid field, with at least five of the police's ships after him. But, thanks to his wit, he successfully hides away so that he can't be found."

"Cool," Daniel says with big fascination. "And then what?"

That's when his dad comes with a frown upon his face. "Go and do the dishes, boy," Daniel's dad tells him in an harsh tone. "You have listened to these stories for far too long."

"Hey, Crow," the guest says. "Give the boy some slack. We are in the middle of something."

"When he have a break he will have more time to hear more of that, sir," is the only answer the guest gets.

"But, daaaad," Daniel whines.

"Look, kid, I think that it is bad that you even listens to these stories, yet I let you. But you have to help me with the bar, too. This man can tell the rest of his story on your next break."

Sour of not being allowed to hear the end of the story Daniel does as he is told, and heads to the back of the establishment where the kitchen is. He starts to do the dishes, but it doesn't go long before he begins to dream away in his fantasies. To experience what pirates does - all the exitement, all the tension - is a dream he have had as long as he can remember.

But instead of being out there, in the world where all his idols have been wandering, he is stuck here, in this bar. But he have decided that it will not always be like this. One day he will be a pirate himself, maybe even the greatest of them all, with the best crew around to boot.

* * *

25 years prior

Daniel is uncertain if he should go thru with it at all.

He shivers a bit in the murky night. Looking back at the house where his father have his bar he sees that all the windows are still dark. His father have still no idea that his only son is running away on this day.

Daniel wonders if he should just give the whole thing up and just go home again, to his warm bed and his cosy bed, but then he shakes his head. He can't go back to his boring existence; if he always gives up and goes home he will never be able to do something with his life. He will be the best pirate, with the most elite pirate crew there is, just like in his dream. So he turns away from his former home and walks away, without looking back ever again.

* * *

20 years prior

Daniel is beaten to the ground. He the stays there, shivering from the pain. The man that stands over him only snickers. "A boy like you shouldn't be here," he says. "If you want to be a part of my crew you have to earn it. What have you done to earn my trust? To gain my loyalty? What have you even done to impress me?"

Daniel don't have to answer, as they both know that he haven't done anything to earn the man's trust nor loyalty, or even impressed him in any way. The boy haven't done anything to impress anyone yet.

"If you want to impress on me, then get up and take the pain like a man," the man urges. But the pain is to great for Daniel to even move too much. He can't do as much as to stand up.

"Thought so," the man says and walks away towards his friends and crew. "Come on, boys. It's time to leave this joint."

Daniel have been searching for a good pirate crew to join, and have finally found one that he liked. The crew have seemed capable, the captain have seemed skilled and they where looking for new members to join them. But it seems that they didn't want a boy of 16 years amongst them, that have done no stealing and didn't have any experience at all.

Daniel refuse to cry from the beating he have taken. His wish to become the greatest pirate that the world have ever seen only strengthens. He will be the most famous pirate that they have ever known, with the greatest of crews and with the biggest collection of loot there is. He will be even more famous than Nathaniel Flint one day, or he will die trying.

After a moment the pain fades away, and Daniel is able to slowly get up on his feet. It seems that to earn trust in the pirating world he must have stolen or something of the sort. And that he will try, eventually.

* * *

10 years prior

He doesn't like to look back on his life, as his past contains to many mistakes. Like the time when he tried to steal from a bar, which is much like the bar that is owned by his own father. But he was caught and eventually thrown out onto the street. Or like the time when he tried to steal from a market stall, and was chased away for at least ten blocks.

For ten years he tries and tries again to steal, but is caight every time. In the end every shopkeeper, barowner and stall knows of him, and shuns him for his tries to steal either their wares or their money. He was forced to move on to another town, so that he could begin anew, but the ride there could have been smoother.

He tried to hitchhike on passing vehicles, but half of the times he is shooed away of the drivers or the passangers. Once he was thrown out of a car while it was still moving, even though it wasn't at a high speed.

So, yeah, Daniel doesn't like to look back on his life, and haven't liked it for the majority of his grown-up life. But soon his luck will change, and he will have his one wish come true; to be the most famous pirate that have ever been.

* * *

About 3 years prior

He have now lived on petty thievery for several years, where he have stolen wallets and small jewelry in crowds without anyone noticing. He have gotten quite good at it, too, but it seems that it haven't been enough to impress any pirates with even the lowest of expectations.

It have been enough to buy him food and hire him a bed over the nights. He have even saved up to buy himself a gun. And he is now ready to something more lucrative than to steal wallets and scrape together money for a living.

He goes to a local store, with a scarf around his head so than he will not get recognized. He hurries to the counter and waves with the gun. At the sight the clerk gets frightened.

"Give me all your money," Daniel says with all the authority he can muster. "I want everything you got." And the clerk does as he is told, without making any fuss.

After all the money is presented Daniel disappears from the scene as quickly as he can and hides away. At first he can't believe that he have gotten away with it, but as the realization that he actually have done it he gets happy. Now a pirate crew might take him in.

And he's right. Not long after he is accepted into a crew, but it didn't last very long. At their first raid the pirates had to run, as the police have gotten a tip of the whole thing. Believing that the newest member have told on them, the pirates leaves Daniel there to be arrested and go to jail.

And that is how he got to be in the cell on the other side of the hallway from Silver.

* * *

3 years prior

After they have escaped jail they start to travel to where treasure planet once have been. Well there they scavage the parts that are left of the big explosion. It is there that they find what they need; what is left of the projector that opens the portal that once have been used by Nataniel Flint to travel back and forth between different parts od the galaxy.

They successfully haouls it back to the hidingplace that are to be their headquarters for the next three years. They try to fix it, and, by some hard work and a miracle from above, they get the thing started. It doesn't work correctly all the time, but it is better than nothing.

It is the same year that they find Dennis, the sniper of the crew, the first to join the crew after Silver. He have been living with his family for all his life, a group of blacksmiths where they makes guns and rifles. Like Daniel, Dennis have always liked to go out on adventures, but never been able to find any. He is tired of his boring life and his ordenary family. So he is bound to say yes once Daniel and Silver presents their offer in the right light.

The three of them is able to steal some treasures, but they don't really get started untill after they recruit their next member.

* * *

2 years prior

The year after they hear rumours of a special woman, a girl that is able to pick any locks there is in the world. They find her, a lass named Maria, on a far away planet. In great debt to a maffiaking, she must help to pick different locks to to help the maffiaking steal different treasures in a try to pay back. With the treasures Daniel and Silver already have stolen they help her out. Now in debt to Daniel and Crow, both in gratitude and in money, Maria joins their crew.

Now, with an expert lockpicker at their disposal, they have an easier time to steal treasures. They are quite few still, but the their next member comes as a coincident meeting. They find Greg, the assasin, drunk, as he have lost his wife in a accident orchestrated by an enemy of his. Daniel and Silver helps him to kill this enemy as an act of vengeance, and in turn Greg sobers up and joins them in their quest for money and jewels.

And in the end they find Sammy and Drew in a factory, where they build and tests motors to ships. They are treated badly of their boss, but are to afraid to say anything back in fear of loosing their jobs. Silver and Daniel presuades them to quit, and in return hires them into their crew.


	4. Chapter 4: The City of the Aztecs

**Act 1**

A year have gone by, and Jim and Jeremy have been on half a dozen missions with RLS Lucky Star, it's crew and captain. They have explored many different places, like the acient ruins of the old roman empire for example. Another is the legend of the crypt with the hundred undead guards, which wasn't so undead as the legend would have them believe. They were only made of stone, as they where several decades old statues.

"Unbelievable how the time flies by," Jeremy comments to Jim as they walk down the street after their return. They are now in a small community near the Interstellar Academy, the very school that they have gone to. "It have been a whole year since our graduation, and it feels like it have only been yesterday."

"Yes, indeed," Jim answers, and remembers the ceremony fondly. All the pupils was in their finest uniforms, and all have been so happy that they have finally taken their exams. Then Jim and Jeremy have taken a flight with a pair of solar surfers around the grounds of the school, just as they have done that night before Silver turned up on Jim's and Sarah's doorstep that unfortunate night.

The two of them are on their way to Jeremy's house, as Jeremy have invited Jim to a dinner. Jeremy also wants to have another with him to help him tell of the adventures that they have been on on this last journey, and to impress Jeremy's father.

But on their way there a neighbour comes up to them, and stops them just as they are to enter Jeremy's house. "Jeremy, haven't you heard the terrible news?" he said in a worried tone.

"No," Jeremy answers, now he worried, too. "Have something happened?"

"Yes, it have. I am surprised that the fleet haven't told you yet. Maybe they didn't want to worry you or something, but I say that you have a right to know. Your father have gone missing."

"Missing?" Jeremy is shocked. "What do you mean, missing?"

"Someone have taken him, when he was on his way home from a lecture in another school."

Both Jeremy and Jim finds this very disturbing. Who would take his father away? And to what purpose? Jeremy's face hardens, and Jim can see that he is determend to find his father. "Do you know anything more of this?" Jeremy asks the neighbour.

"Nothing much, but I bet that the police knows more."

"Then I will go to them and demand them to tell me everything about it," Jeremy says. He quickly thanks the neighbour for the information and with haste walks to the nearest policestation. "Jim," he adress his friend on the way there. "I will probably need a small crew with me on my seach for my dad. I sure hope that you can come with me."

"Sure I can," Jim answers truthfully.

Later the same day Jeremy have gotten all he needs from the police, like where his father have last been seen and that it appears to have been pirates. It seems that the police have barely started with the case, and that they have still to go to this school to get more information. Jeremy takes on the case, and makes it a matter for the Interstellar Fleet. The very next day Jeremy applies to the Interstellar Fleet headquarters to get his very own ship to command.

"You really think that the Fleet will let you take the role as captain?" Jim asks just as they have applied.

"Sure they will," Jeremy says with confidence. "I have been a second-in-command for a whole year, and a damn good one at that. They are bound to make me captain someday, so why not now?"

And after a few days the Interstellar Fleet does just that, but on one condition: that the Fleet will choose a man to watch over the whole mission, and deem afterwards if Jeremy is fit to continue as a captain. Within the same day the crew is choosen, and then they are off to the school where Jeremy's dad, Seymour Walkup, hast last been seen.

* * *

"And you didn't see where he went next?" Jeremy asks one of the teachers, but gets a shake of the head as an answer.

"You didn't notice anything unusual when you walked away from school that day?" he wonders, stating the question to one of the students just a few moments later. But gets a negative answer.

"There wasn't any strangers lurking about that you saw?" Jeremy says another person, but gets a no.

Everywhere he goes in the school, and whatever question he asks, Jeremy and Jim fails to get any information about Seymour. So they turned their attention to the area around the school, to see if they could find anyone that might have seen the man. And after a few tries they find a witness.

"Sure, I have seen a man of that description," she says. "I saw him walk his way to the port. But suddenly there came some suspicious looking people and took him. I took notice of it because they seemed to force him with them. They took him onto their ship, which disappeared into thin air not far of into the distance of the port."

Jeremy gets a bit shocked, and Jim gets shocked as well. But the reasons to this mood is different for them both.

"Can it really be?" Jeremy asks and turns to Jim as they have said their goodbyes to the witness. "Sounds like the portal that captain Amelia included in her report of the adventure to treasure planet. Sure, doesn't it, Jim?"

"It sure does," Jim answers absentminded and averts his eyes to the side, as he have other things to think about. _Why would Silver and Crow take Seymour?_

"This better needs a thorough investigation," Jeremy speaks and rubs his chin in deep thought. "But who would have such technology? Wasn't it destroyed in the explosion of treasure planet?"

Hatching his own plan, Jim is quick to come up with an answer to Jeremy's questions. "Maybe you should take a look on what's left of the treasure planet."

"Good plan, Jim. We should head there right now." Jeremy walks ahead a few steps before he notice that his comrade isn't walking by his side. Jeremy stops and turns to Jim. "You coming?"

Jim stands still, still looking a bit to the side. Then he snaps his face to his friend. "I will not go with you."

"Why not? You're my right wing man in this."

"There is a few things I need to look up. Something that I think have something to do with this."

Jeremy gets curious, Jim can see it in his eyes. "Oh, yeah? What things?"

"I can't tell you know. Maybe later. But what I need to do now is to go."

Jeremy looks at Jim with a hint of suspicion, but in the end the older boy lets him go without any more question.

* * *

Since their last meeting Silver and Jim haven't corresponded as much as they once have done. Their friendship have taken a turn to the worse, and Jim is uncertain how he himself feels about it. The two of them have been friends for a long time, and to loose that friendship would be a great loss for Jim. But after Silver's theft of that hard earned treasure the boy wonders what is really going on in the cyborgs mind.

Jim travels to the place where he have met with Silver to repair the projector, as he strongly suspects that the cyborg and his pirate friends use that same spot as their hideaway. It takes though a few days, if not for a week, to travel to the spot. It turns out that his suspicion is right.

"Silver, open up," he calls and bangs on the locked door. After a moment an uneven walk can be heard from the other side, and within seconds the cyborg opens up.

"Ah, Jimbo, what a surprise!" Silver says in his usual carefree mood, but Jim can see the uneasiness in the pirates eyes from the last time they have talked face to face. "I didn't know that you would come."

"Where is he?" Jim asks shortly, and cuts to the chase.

Silver's smile disappears and an uneasy expression comes over him. "Who do you mean?"

"You know who I mean. Seymour Walkup." When John doesn't answer the boy continues with a slightly more irritated voice. "He went with a ship that disappeared into thin air. Does that sound familiar?"

After a short silence Silver breaks down. "Eh, listen here, Jimbo, I was against this whole kidnapping. But it was Crow that prompt wanted the man to come with us."

Jim forced his way inside, and he didn't pay any attention to Silver's objections to this intrusion nor to the pleads to leave the matter alone. And there, on a chair bound and gagged, is the man Jim is looking for.

"I will take him home," he declares and starts to untie the prisoner. "And if you don't want that I talk to the police about the matter, Silver, you will let us go immediately."

"You will do no such thing," comes a voice behind him. Jim turns, and sees that it is Daniel Crow himself that have spoken. "We will leave with him, and that is that."

"Leave?" Jim asks. "Leave where? And why do you have to force poor Seymour to come with you?"

"Because of this," Daniel says and hold up an old stone tablet in his hand. "This tablet tells of an old treasure in an unknown part of the galaxy, placed in the old, lost city of the Aztecs. And Seymour here are to help us to find it."

"You really need and school teacher to help you with that?"

"A professor in navigation by stars. He knows things that none of us knows. If someone is to help us find that treasure it is he."

Jim can't help but to wonder what kind of treasure the tablet tells about, but quickly shakes the idea out of his mind. To kidnap someone is wrong, and he says as much to the pirates.

"How else are we to get the treasure?" Daniel asks honestly.

"I don't know," Jim says and throws his hands up. "You could have approached him, asked him gently if he could read the tablet and to give you a few pointers. But to kidnap him? Isn't that a little to much?"

"And have him tell people of the tablet?"

"Now he will undoubtedly tell about the tablet! And of how he got kidnapped because of it."

"Only if we let him go."

Jim sighs and rubs his face. He realizes that he might very well go nowhere with this discussion. "What else will you do with him after you have gotten to the treasure? You have to let him go sooner or later."

Daniel gets silent for a moment and thinks for himself, then he takes a breath. "I trust you, Jim. You're a good kid. That you haven't rattled either of us nor our hiding place out is only proof of that. And I want to show you that I am of the same kind. So tell you what. If you will come with us on this little adventure, I promise to release Seymour this very day."

Jim gets a bit surprised of the offer. And then he gets to think himself. One single little exploration trip with these guys can't hurt, and that he will help release a soul from these pirates wouldn't be wrong. Who knows what they would to with Seymour after they are to get all they need from him.

"You give your word on that?" Jim asks in the end.

"Yes. I give my solemn word." But unbeknown to Jim, and to Silver who stands and looks on the entire scene, Daniel crosses his fingers behind his own back while he gives his promise.

"Deal," Jim says and returns to untie Seymour. "Sir," the boy then says to the man when the gag and rope is gone. "You care to look at the tablet and give us a few leads to where we are to go next before we let you go?"

"Well, it is the least I can do for you, my boy," the man says. "You who made so that I can go my way this very day." And so the professor reads the tablet, and tells them what direction he thinks they should take. "Well beyond the twin stars of the northern border, I believe," is his final verdict.

"Thank you, professor," Jim says and shakes his hand.

"There," Crow says. "Now I think that I and the crew are to help Seymour home. Jim, why don't you and Silver go and sit down in wait for us, it will not take that long to bring the professor to his house with the portal."

Jim and Silver does just that. "Good work, Jimbo," the cyborg says with an earnest smile and pats the boy on the back. "I tried several times, and failed every time, to make Daniel release the man."

As the two of them gone Daniel turns to Seymour. "If you only go this way we will make sure that you are safely returned, sir," Crow says and nods to one of the next rooms. He then follows the professor closely, with a certain look upon his face.

As Crow comes to the doorway he looks back to make sure that neither Jim nor Silver are not coming back from where they have gone. And as there is no trace of them Daniel turns his back towards the room. He brings out his knife and looks on how it glimmers in the light. As he sees his own reflection upon the add he smiles slightly before he walks thru the doorway and disappears from view.

* * *

 **Act 2**

The very next day they prepare to leave, as they put everything they needed into their ship. Even the projector, which created the portals, are hauled onto the big boat. And when they take off they activate the projector and travels to the northern border, by the twin star, in matter of seconds.

They travel beyond the twin stars, and within the day they come upon a red star. They stop once they have come close, as the sight of what is around the star gets their attention. "Look at all those shipwrecks," Silver says in amazement. "It must be hundreds of them." And true to his words, there are several different parts of different ships scattered around the star, together with a lot of asteroids and stones.

"But what happened to them?" asks Jim.

"Never mind them," Daniel ovberves and points to something else. "What about that?" Among the wreckage there is a stripe of stone around the star, with an old city on the inside facing the red star. It is at this Crow is pointing at.

But they have not much time to observe this sight, as they are suddenly attacked by something. Several smaller ships emerges from the rubble, and closes in quickly on them. The unknown shipst start to fire on them.

"Evasive manuvers, quickly!" Daniel orders. Greg, the assasin, stears the ship in different directions as to evade the oncoming fire. "All men, get ready to fire back!"

But it is something that Daniel and his crew quickly realizes. "None of our fire seems to find their targets," Silver observes in confusion, as he looks on when their fire goes right thru the enemy ships.

"And none of theirs seems to hit us," Daniel says, just as perplexed as Silver, as he note that the oncoming fire goes right thru them.

Jim is baffled just as the others, but it is he who realize first how things are connected. He, with his bright eyes, is the first to see the small lights that are coming from the asteroids and rocks that are in orbit around the star. He recognizes them, and within seconds realizes from where he have seen them before. It is from the books that he have looked at so many times when he have grown up.

He points at them. "There," he exclaims with a high voice. "The ships are only holograms. The projectors are enbedded in the rubble around the star."

Daniel takes out his telescope to look at the asteroids, and to his amazement it is as the boy says. "Fire at the stones," he orders. "Destroy the projectors."

They quickly flies around and destroys all the rubble, and just as Jim have predicts the enemy ships goes away, one after one. But not only that, but the shipwrecks dissapears, too.

"I wonder why it was there to begin with," Silver says as they regroup after they have destroyed all the projectors.

Jim scratches his chin in thought, and looks at the stripe of stone that is the only thing that remains. "I think that it might have been the Aztecs that might have put the projectors in the stones," he murmurs. "To give the illusion of the shipwrecks and the attacking ships. So that anyone that happens to come near might flee in terror."

The next thing they do is to is to land by the old city that is on the inside of the stone strip that slowly turns around the red sun. They search it completely, hopeful to see the treasure that the tablet speaks about. But after a few days of search they haven't found anything but an old library, filled with ancient books that have old writings in them.

Daniel is shaking with anger at this. "What have we achieved if there is no treasure?" he asks and rubs his temples. "No gold, no diamonds, nothing."

"But we HAVE found something," Jim says, and takes up a book. "Look at this, Daniel. We have our treasure right here. Maybe the library is the treasure."

"But what do we do with books?" Crow asks, too angry to see what Jim means.

"These books contains maybe all the knowledge of a whole people, Crow," Jim tries. "Think about the technologies that might be cramped between these books. The secrets that you might find. Maybe there are even notions in here that might lead to gold and jewels."

Daniel scratches his chin, takes up a book and looks it thru, until he lands on a few pages that is of sketches of something that makes his eyes grow wide. But he doesn't show what it is to anyone. "You might be right, lad," he says after a few seconds. "You might be very right."

* * *

"Go on, Silver," Crow urges with a dominant tone. "Speak with the boy. Make him understand that it is in his best interest to be with us."

"Yeah, I will," insists John, a bit insecure of what he really should say to the boy to make him come over to their side.

Silver looks at the boy. Jim is looking thru one of the books with an interest that only a youngster like him can produce. John takes a few tentative steps towards him, but then stops. He looks back at Daniel, who gives a small nod of encouragement.

John looks back at the boy, takes a big breath and then takes the few last strides to Jim.

"Listen, Jim," Silver begins to gain the boy's attention. Jim looks up from the book with an questioning look. "I and Daniel have been discussing a little about you, and wonder if you shouldn't join us."

"Join you?" Jim asks.

The words are said in a surprised tone, but Silver isn't late to note that there is something else there, too. _Maybe the lad have thought on it_ , is the thought that comes to John's mind. Which is a thought that makes him happy. Maybe the two of them will roam the galaxy together just as he have suggested back on RLS Legacy minutes before they have departed. Or maybe not just like that suggestion, as he have said that they wouldn't have any ties to anyone else. Now there is a few others in the picture as well.

"Yeah, you know, join us and our crew," Silver clarifies. "Become a pirate, like me."

There takes a moment before Jim answers. It is a moment of uncertainty, of carefully putting words to thoughts. "Thank you for the offer, Silver, and - believe me when I say this - I have thought on it a little last year."

Here a gleam of hope lights up in Silvers heart. Maybe there is just the chance that Jim says yes, that the boy will go with them and take his rightful place in the history books as the greatest pirate of them all.

"But," Jim continues, and with a single word immediately plants doubt in Silver's mind. "I have decided that that I will stay in the fleet."

"But you can't!" Silver realizes that his cry might have been too loud and too strong the second after the words have left his mouth. Jim's eyebrows rises up in an expression that seeks an answer to the outburst. "I mean, you can't really think that you have a real future with them. You will only be stuck in a engine room or in a workshop, fixing things on the captain's orders." It is the same reason Crow have given Silver, but John can't come to think on another one at the time. And according to Silver, it is the reason that makes the most sense.

The expression Jim gets tells Silver that the boy wonders what John might be after. "So what?" Jim asks. "I'm happy with that, Silver. I am only glad to be exploring. If I'm stuck in a workshop while doing it doesn't matter."

"But what will you get from it? The fame will only go to the captain, and not the crew."

Jim thinks on Silver's argumantation for a few seconds, and the cyborg believes that he might have begun to win the boy over. But the next lines that the boy express makes John think as well. "Doesn't that go for pirate ships, too? Remember Nathaniel Flint. He got all the glory, while the crew remain nameless."

"... true," Silver is forced to say, as Flint really have gotten all the glory. But John remains firm in his conviction. "But we will be different. We will share the fame and glory. And you, Jimbo, will be the greatest of them all."

Jim shakes his head. "The answer is still a no, Silver. I am happy where I am. I have done stupid things in my life, and I will not go back to doing them." Silver gets dissapointed, and he must have shown it in his face as the noy lays a hand on his arm. "Don't take it the wrong way, Silver. But it is my choice."

And it is a choice Silver is ready to accept and respect, the old cyborg will not force the boy in doing anything he doesn't want to. But that doesn't go for everyone, as a few meters from them Crow observes them with a face full of dissapointment.

* * *

Jim walks onboard the ship, ready to go home. But when he hears a click behind him he stops. That click he have heard before, like in school when there where weapon practice. It is the distinct sound of the safety on a gun.

Jim turns slowly around. And there, only a few meters away, stands Crow with a gun in his hand, aiming it at the boy. "Do not make any hasty movements," Daniel speaks in a low voice. Behind him stands the rest of the crew except for Silver, all of them with as serious faces as Crow's.

"What the heck are you doing?" asks Silver as he too comes onboard. "Put that thing away."

"No," is the answer he gets. "It is high time for the lad to really decide. Either he is with us or not. And if he is not, then there is no use for him to keep on living."

Jim is chocked of what he is hearing, but Silver is even more so than the boy. Then anger sets in in John. "What do you mean!?"

"I mean just what I say, Silver." Turning to Jim, Crow's eyes grows thin. "I heard that you wants to go back to the fleet. Well, do you really, lad? This is your very last chance. Think of the riches you can get, if you become a pirate like us."

Jim can't barely believe what is happening. He have just gotten a dilemma that he can't escape from. It's either to become a pirate, or die right where he stands.

"You can't be serious," hiss Silver. "This is madness! We haven't discussed this."

"No, we haven't. But yet we have to do this. Can't you see, Silver? This is the only way to make him choose."

"No, it isn't." Furius, Silver stomps his way right in front of Jim, in the line of the gun. "I will not have you shot this boy over this!"

John and Daniel looks at each other for a moment before any of them speak again, a few seconds where each of them sends a wordless message. Crow realizes that these two cares deeply for each other, like a father and a son, and that gives him an idea. An dark and mean notion that only a real villain can come up with.

"Then you leave me no choice," Crow says. "Boys, get these two tied up and lock them in the the brig."

* * *

 **Hi, guys. Sorry for the long wait. Have gotten a litte writer's block. If you have any ideas that you like to chare, you are welcome to send me a message. I think that it might take a while before the next chaoter comes out. I feel a bit lazy, and I haven't gotten over the writer's block yet. Just so you know.**


	5. Chapter 5: Past and Present

**Act 1**

Silver couldn't lift his head or limbs, he couldn't even move them an inch, as the pain keeps him on the edge or conciousness. He have been beaten senseless by Crow's crew for several hours, and Jim have been forced to watch every second of it, suffering the pain with the cyborg with every blow. The boy have even gotten a few of his own when he have fought against his restrains when he have tried to run to his friend's side. Right now the boy is kneeling, with a crewmember on either side of him that holds him firmly right where he is.

After hours of the rough treatment Silver lies on the floor, unable to move. "You see, now?" Crow asks. "You see what will happen when you dissobays? When you don't do what you are told Silver here will take a beating. And I promise you that it will go further than this the next time."

Jim glares at Daniel with clear hate in his eyes. Why the boy haven't told the authorities about Crows hideout have been becouse of not risk to send Silver back to jail again. But if the cyborg haven't been in the gang all this time, Jim would have told the fleet a long time ago. Maybe even shortly after he have cleared his mind if he should go pirating or stay with the fleet a year ago.

"All this can be avoided if you work with us," Daniel continues as he goes closer to Jim and kneels so that their faces are on the same level. "I want you to build something for us." Here he brings out the book that he have showed interest in earlier. He opens up the right page and shows it to Jim. "I want you to build this; a shield that can protect my entire ship."

"A shield?" Jim questions, and looks at the schematics. He makes a quick estimate how advanced it is, what resourses he might need and how long it might take to build it. "Do you know what it takes to build that thing? It might take weeks, even months."

"You will work as hard and as long you need to finish it." Daniel smiles a wicked smile. He kloss that this might be a bit of the extreme, but if it is the only way to get a use of the boy's talents then so be it. Crow knows that Jim would do anything to save his friend from unessecery pain, even how much trouble that might bring.

* * *

Leland Hawkins is an adventurous man; he loves the thrill of life, and have not once turned down a chance to take on a hazardouz venture. But that all charges when he meets the woman of his life, Sarah. The first time they meet is in a street in a small town on the planet Montressor. She's so beutiful in ger dress that he falls in love with her on the spot.

He gets closer to her with tentative steps. He just have to talk to her, but when he stand by her side he doesn't come up with anything good to say. So he says the only thing he have on his mind. "E-excuse me," he says to her with an uncertain voice. "I seem to have gotten lost." A stupid thing to say he realizes the second the words are out of is mouth, as he knows exactly where he is.

She turns to him, and smiles. Leland thinks that her smile is even more beutiful than her dress. "Oh, where are you trying to get to?" she asks.

A question so simple but yet so hard, as he have no idea what to answer. He haven't really planned this at all. He decides to be honest, and to see where it leads to. "I don't really know. Where are you going?"

"I am on my way to the grocary store, to buy some food."

"Can I possibly join you?"

The question makes her pause, as it seems a bit out of place for a stranger to ask such a thing. She looks at him with a brow raised for a moment before she replies. "I can't really see the harm in that. Are you too buying groceries?"

"Not really."

And so they go along together, side by side. And it doesn't take long before they start chatting about this and that.

* * *

The machine that Crow wants Jim to build is complicated, even more so than the boy antisipated. The tools he have on the ship, as Daniel have gathered many in his travels to let Sammy and Drew use on the engine, but many of the parts the boy needs he have to build by himself. Almost the whole machine can be called a custom jobb. It needs several months of hard work to get it in sotning order.

Jim's hope to get of the ship before the machine is build is low, but then, after one and a vald week of work with it, an idea to flee starts to take form in his mind after he have flipped thru a few other pages in the book. It turns out that the whole book is filled with different schematics on different inventions, and one of them might just make the flight from Daniel and his crew possible. It is a machine that casts illusions, of one object or several, much like the devices that showed the wreacks and the incomming enemy ships.

* * *

Leland and Sarah have met a couple of times now, and they are finally a pair. They are dating, and Leland have never been happier. He have fallen in love, and it seems that Sarah have too. It turns out that her mother is the owner of an inn, and today Sarah takes Leland to see it.

"It's impressive," he says when he sees it. "Benbow Inn, was it?"

"Yes," she answers. "Sometimes I help out in serving the guests, and sometimes I help out with the dishes. It is hard work, but it is bettet than nothing."

He nods in agreement. Then she takes him inside the inn, to introduce him to her mother.

"So, it is you that are the young gentleman that have swept my daughter of her feet," Sarah's mother says and looks at him hard with a scrutenising eye. "I thought you be taller."

"Nice inn you have, ma'am," Leland says back with a smile. "Almost as beutiful as your daughter."

Sarah's mother doesn't get as impressed by his words as he have hoped, but she welcomes him with open arms antway.

* * *

Jim looks around where he is kneeling by his creation to see if he is watched. He have usualy a guard with him, who overlooks how it goes and makes sure that he works. But that guard is out of the room now, to do some quick errant. Jim turns the machine on, and an exact replica of himself is created out of thin air. The illusion looks like it is working on the very machine that is conjuring it, tinkering with something small on the machine's side.

Jim quickly turns it off again, glad that it works. He takes a hold of it and heaves it up into the air. It is as big as a cartire, and as heavy as one. When he gets to the door he meets with Greg, his guard.

"And where are you going?" he asks.

"Out on top deck," Jim answers quickly. He have thought on what he would have to say if - or maybe when - he is to meet someone who ask questions. "I'm almost done, I just want to test it out in the open before I make some final tweaks."

So he gets out into the top deck, with the guard in tow, and finds a place where it is much space. Jim puts it down with care, pretends to flip a switch and looks up at the stars above together with Greg. When nothing happens the boy hums, kneels down by the machine and starts to play around with some wires.

"What's wrong?" his guard asks.

"Don't know. Seems that I might have missed something, but it is propably nothing serious."

He pretends to fix with the machine and looks over the book a few times, all the while ? looks on. But then the guard walks a bit further away and doesn't give Jim as much attention. There aren't any other crewmembers on the same deck, so it is easy to switch the machine on, let the illusion take his place and sneak down the stairs that leads to the brig with a lockpick from the toolbox in hand.

"Jimbo?" Silver's voice is low and hoarse of not being used all that much. He haven't gotten much beating since he have been locked in, but he is still a bit swollen at places. "Are you alright, lad?"

"Yeah," the boy whispers and starts to work on the lock with the lockpick. "I am here to get you out. We are to get out of here."

"You have a plan, I assume." And so, in short terms, Jim explains to Silver what he have planned. When Jim is done Silver smiles. "I didn't know that you could come up with such a plan," the cyborg teases.

Jim glares as he finaly gets the cell door open. "Just get up and come along."

* * *

It have gone a few years for Leland and Sarah, and he have moved into the inn in the same room where Sarah lives. Her mother have taken ill under that time, and have sadly died. That have left Sarah to get the inn. But they don't get much time to mourn as they now are happy, as Sarah is pragnent.

"If it is a girl I'll name her Hellen," she says with a smile.

"But what if it turns out to be a boy?" Leland asks, he too smiling.

She thinks for a while before she answers. "James," she finally speaks. "But I will call him Jim for short."

The same week they have a wedding, something they just come up with on the fly. They doesn't want to have anything big, and only invited their closest friends and family. And so, Sarah becomes Sarah Hawkins.

* * *

"What's that?" one crewmember asks and points at something in the sky.

"Is that... a longboat?" asks another.

Daniel looks up to where the small dot in the sky is and takes a long glare at it. He sees that it actually is a longboat, and the second after he makes the assumption. He turns to where the machine is with growing eyes, only to see that the boy is gone.

"It is Jim and Silver!" he screams in anger and points at the longboat in the sky. "After them! Catch them! Bring them back!"

And of they went, to catch the runaway prisoners. But little do they know that there have been an identical boat have been hiding right under them. What they are chasing are an illusion created by Jim's machine. And when Daniel and his crew goes after the illusion, Jim and Silver slips away on the opposite direction, towards the interstellär fleet headquarters.

* * *

Leland have started to miss the adventurous life, the life of thrill and dangers. But he's conflicted; is he just going to go, or is he going to talk to Sarah about it. They have started to argue, the two of them. Something that he have thought impossible, as they have been the perfect couple. What they are fighting about are smaller things, almost insignificant stuff, but somehow they grow to an enomous size in their fights.

And in the middle of it is the small son they have gotten. James Pleiades Hawkins. Pleiades have been some old relative on Sarah's side, and she have insisted to add the name. Leland himself doesn't know many of his relatives.

In the end, after two years of the same old quarrels with Sarah, Leland have finally decided. He couldn't handle it anymore. So one day he packs his bag, and with a final word to Sarah, he just takes of. No big goodbye, no word in days advance, just a single "I'm leaving" and he's off.

Sarah takes it as their divorce, and he can see the tears in her eyes. But it is Jim that takes it hardest.

* * *

"Are you sure that you are alright with this?" Jim ask, worried for his friend's health after the beating Silver have gotten. Sure, it was some weeks ago, and f the cyborg gotten some lastning injuries they would have shown before this moment. But that wouldn't stop the boy from worrying how it will go for him.

They have decided that they should part ways, where Silver stays behind on an civilized planet and Jim goes ahead to the headquarters. There is no telling what kind of punishment Silver will be out thru if he is catched again, at least not after the gracious forbearing that the authorites showed the last time.

"I'll be fine, lad," ensures the cyborg. "I have gone thru worse troubles." Jim is just about to leave when Silver grabs the boy's arm. "Listen, Jimbo. I am truly sorry that I stole from you. I didn't know that you would be on that ship. Honestly."

Jim sees that Silver is truly honest with him, and smiles after a second of thought. The two of them have been such good friends for so long now, so that Jim can't stay angry at him for any longer. "See it as forgotten, Silver." And so Jim leaves Silver behind and head to the interstellar fleet headquarters alone.

* * *

Leland have lived for almost one decade and a half as he have done before he have met Sarah; he have experienced adventures, thrills and dangers of the life out in space. But now he wonders what have happened to his darling, Sarah, and to his son, Jim.

And it is now, when Jim flees from Daniel Crow and his crew, that he returns to the place he once left. But he is astounded to see the burned remains of Benbow Inn, and learn that his family doesn't live here anymore. He goes to learn where they might be in town, and hears that they have moved in with Delbert Doppler. Leland remembers Delbert from before, and knows where he lives very well.

* * *

 **Act 2**

"I can't belive that you even dare to set your fot back on this planet!" comes Sarah's voice from the door of the Doppler's residence. "That you even think that you are welcome back! No, don't you even take a single step into this house!"

"But Sarah, darling, it was so long ago. I want to see how it is with my family." Leland tries to get inside, but Sarah blocks the front door so tag wouldn't be possible.

"We aren't your family anymore. We haven't been ever since you left." Sarah's face radiates with the anger she feels, and if she would be any more angrier she would surely explode.

Leland takes a step back and sighs. "Very well. At least I see that you are well. I am sorry for that with the inn. Can I at least see Jim? Is he alright as well?"

"He's alright. In fact, he's doing great. He's healthy, he have a great jobb, and he have done everything without your help." Here she puts a index finger on his chest with quite some force. She is clearly getting angrier and angrier the longer Leland is staying. "Did you know that he have taken your departure very badly? He got in so much trouble becouse of you leaving."

This gets to him. He didn't really realize that he had such an inpact on his son's life, even when Leland wasn't there. Right then and there he decides that he should look Jim up, to talk a bit and to say that he's sorry. "Where is he?" he asks Sarah.

"And what are you going to do now? Create more problems for him?"

"No, I just want to talk to him," Leland says honestly. "And to say that I'm sorry."

This seems to soften Sarah a bit, but Leland can still see that she is angry. "He is at his work," she says after a moment of looking him over. "He is working for the interstellar fleet. I don't know exactly where he is, as he can be in any part of the space at that ship he's sailing with. You should hear with their headquarters for more."

Leland can't believe his ears. His son is working for the interstellar fleet! He thanks Sarah, and in his happines he gives her a hug. She gets a bit taken aback of the sudden gesture, but after a second she hugs back. Afterwards, just when he is about to leave, he wants to say something to Sarah. "I'm sorry," he apologizes. "For hurting you with leaving."

"I don't know if I can forgive you," she simply says. "What you did hurt me deeply." Then she closes the door. She doesn't say goodbye, or even gives a wave nor a smile.

* * *

"And there are five of them," ends Jim to one of the investigator of the interstellar fleet at the headquarters, who writes furiously what the boy have said.

"Good of you to have told us about this, Mr. Hawkins," the investigator says. "Now there will be another bunch of criminals that will shake the bars for a long time."

As Jim are about to leave he passes a man that are arguing with one in the reception. He wouldn't think more about it if it wasn't for the fact that he hears his name among their words. He halts and listens to their conversation.

"I am telling you, I am looking for James Pleiades Hawkins," the man says. "I was told that he works for you."

"I am sorry, sir, but I don't really know where he is. Last time he reported for duty was under Jeremy Walkup, then he was going of by himself on an own investigation. That was about a month ago."

"But where is he now? Do you have any idea?"

This is where Jim decides to step in. He can't get rid of the nagging feeling that he knows this man. "I'm James Hawkins," he presents himself, and the man turns to him.

"Finally, I have found you," the man says with a unusuall - at least to Jim - warm smile. "Don't you recognize me?"

"I do know you from somewhere." The nagging feeling only gets stronger at this point, and something in him tells him that he must know him.

The man brings out his hands towards Jim, as if to get a warm enbrace from the boy. "It's me. Your old man."

The world seems to shrink, then expand. All light goes out of the room, and all other people dissapears. Jim's tounge gets dry in a few seconds, and he is unable to say anything for the longest of times. Then, when he have gotten his speech back, he frowns like he have never done before. It's a glare that can burn a hole thru the hardest of steels. It's so obvious now, Jim should have known who this man is the second he have layed eyes on him. Leland Hawkins, his father. How the years can change the memory of a face.

"You shouldn't have come back," Jim says in a dark tone. "When you left without a word."

Leland's hands sinks to his sides; he have actually expected a hug. But now he sees that will not happen. Where have the boy gone, who have seeked all that attention all those years ago. Leland understands after a second that that boy now is gone, and in his place is an angry teen that have been consumed by the question why. Why would his father leave? Why wouldn't he say goodbye first?

"I... I'm sorry if I hurt you, Jim," Leland begins. "But after all that fighting with your mother I felt so caged in. I had to go."

"You didn't _had_ to go anywhere. You where just too afraid to stay and take care of us, of me. You fled away from your own family."

Leland remembers back on the fights that he had with Sarah, and knows that it partly is true; he can't deny it. That, and the promise of adventure. And he says as much to Jim, which seems to soften the boy a little. "But now I'm here," Leland continues and makes a decision right there and then. That is to take responsibility and to stay with his family. "If it makes it any better, I want to be a part of your life again."

Jim looks him over with a critical eye, and for a moment there is just silence between them. Then the boy opens his mouth. "I think that you can't handle it."

Leland gets puzzled. "Can't handle? What do you mean?"

"You have told me about yourself, that you like adventure. How long can you go without it this time?"

"But maybe I have changed."

"That lust for adventure never goes away. Not completely, anyway. That's at least something I know of, for everything I have gone thru." Then Jim's eyes turns a little, as if he realizes something. "That might be the one thing that I have gotten from you, the lust of adventure."

A small moment of stillness is shared between the two, as the first small piece of understanding falls in place. But it will be a long time untill Jim is able to forgive his father, both understand that. But maybe Leland is ready to work for it.

That's when it happens, when the unexpected take place. A portal opens in a nearby wall and thru it comes Daniel Crow himself. Before anyone can do anything he grabs Jim from the back and pushas the boy thru the portal with such force that Jim almost loses his balance.

Uncertain of what happens Leland stays where he stands maybe a bit too long. But then he takes action, but maybe a few seconds too late. "No!" is all Leland is able to say and starts to throw himself at the intruder before Daniel steps thru the portal and it shuts behind him.

* * *

"You thought you could escape me?!" Daniel roars and slaps Jim so hard on the cheek that the boy's head is thrown hard to the side. "Stupid boy. You can not get away from Daniel Crow."

Jim brings his head back and looks at the older man. "How did you find me?" he wonders.

"When I realized that it was an illusion I chased I knew that you would return to the headquarters of the interstellar fleet, to tell them about us. It was only a matter of time. Then it was pure luck that made so that the portal put me in the same room as you."

Jim smiles. "So now what? You want me to build that shield? You don't really have anything on me anymore. Silver isn't here."

"Maybe we have," Daniel smiles back; a smile so sinister that it extinguishes the pleased expression on the boy's face. Jim have thought the moment he realized what is going on that Crow can't make him do anything anymore. But apperantly there is. "We do know where your mother lives."

Jim's eyes grows wide. He have completely forgotten about that. Daniel have visited him in his own room at the Dopplers', where Sarah now resides. Surely Silver have told Daniel at some point. "Don't you do it," Jim begs. "She have been thru enough."

"Only if you do what we tell you to."

* * *

Leland is in a panic. His son have been taken right in front of him. He have learned from the interstellar fleet that it have been Daniel Crow who have been the one that taken him. But how will Leland bring Jim back? What will Sarah say if she finds out of this? She will surely kilo Leland for letting this happen.

Leland decides quite quickly that the right thing to do is to bring his son back. He can even see it as one of his adventures. But where to begin? Well, where any of his adventures begins at: the beginning. And the beginning, he thinks, must be just where he is, at the interstellar fleet. Someone here must know a little more about Jim's situation here than himself.

"Hey!" a sudden voice says loudly, clearly speaking to everyone in the room. It comes from a young man in a captain's uniform. "Have anyone heard from Jim Hawkins?"

"I have," Leland declares. "And I will be happy to share the little information that I have. If you give me some information in return."

"Sounds fair," the man says and walks up to the older man. "Who might I be speaking with?"

"Leland Hawkins, Jim's father. And you?"

"Jeremy Walkup."


	6. Chapter 6: Father for a Father

**Act 1**

"So, you're Jim's dad," Jeremy says with something in his voice that Leland can't decide what it is at first. "I have heard a lot about you."

"Oh?" Leland thinks back on the meeting between himself and his son, and anticipates bad vibes. "Nothing good, I presume."

"That's right. He doesn't say much about you, but when he does-" Here Jeremy whistles. Leland now understand what it is in the younger man's voice. It is disbelief, surely about what Leland have done to Jim all those years ago.

"Enough about this," Leland decides, as he wants to move things along. He wants to prove that he isn't all that bad, and if he helps to rescue Jim - even a little bit - Leland might prove it. "Jim have been kidnapped."

"He have?" Jeremy is completely oblivious to this - it happened before he have come into the room. Even though the news starts to travel through the building there are people who doesn't know yet. "Then we have to rescue him."

"My thought exactly. But how?"

Jeremy starts to walk back and forth, with a hand at his chin in a thoughtfull manner. He looks to be thinking hard. "So he was here just a minute ago?"

"Yes."

Here Jeremy stops and puts up a finger in triumph. "Then he must have just gotten back from whatever he was doing. He might have reported something to someone."

The two of them looks around the whole of the interstellar fleet's headquarters for this someone, all the while Jeremy tells Leland of Jeremy's last mission together with Jim; when the two of them is to look for Jeremy's father, Seymour Walkup. "Jim told me that he was going to look something up," Jeremy ends his tale. "Since then I haven't seen him nor my father."

In the end they find the investigator that Jim have reported to, and what he have to tell them shocks them. "My dad, dead?" Jeremy exclaims with sadness. "I maybe should have known when he wasn't comming back in the end." As he have gotten the expression that Jim would work on getting Seymour back, and when his dad didn't come back Jeremy have worked himself on trying to find his old man.

"Jim working with pirates?" Leland says in distaste. "I didn't have any idea." Here he have imagine the perfect son, a boy that works for the interstellar fleet and seems to have succeded in everything he himself have failed. And yet he didn't know the friendship between Jim and Silver. Neither does none of them know that Silver have been one of Daniel's crew, as Jim have not included that knowledge.

After a few moments of pondering of this new information Jeremy turns to Leland. "So, it might be safe to assume that it is this Daniel Crow that took Jim. But how in the whole space could they have come by this portal technology?" That Jim have been the one that helped to get the portal working is a fact that Jim have left out from the beginning.

"That's a question for another time," answers Leland. "Right now the most important thing we have to do is to save Jim."

"Yeah, you're right. We can ask him when he's safe and sound."

They think for a moment what their next move is going to be. "The question is," Leland says. "Where do the pirates have their hidingplace?"

"I have no idea," admits Jeremy, but comes up with an idea. "Maybe we need a pirate to find a pirate?"

"And where are we going to find a pirate?"

"Well, I know one that might be able - and most importantly, wants - to help, but I don't know where he is."

"That's helpfull," Leland exclaims with irony in his voice.

"If we just look around a bit we might be able to find this pirate." With that Jeremy starts to walk towards the exit.

"And how long will that take?" Leland still have a bit of irony in his voice as he follows the younger man.

* * *

Jim is driven hard by Daniel, as much time have been wasted to build the wrong machine and to get Jim back. But as the boy refuses at first Daniel beats him sensless time and time again before Jim is willing to begin building again. It takes a few days before the actual work starts, and when it does Jim moves his body with great effort after all the misuse. If he refuse now, or gets it wrong, he gets promises to get even more thrashing.

Now he have two guards with him, even though there are only five of the pirates in total, who have been ordered to never leave the boy at the same time no matter what. He have to work from early mornings to late nights every day, with the sole companionship with his two guards. Sometime, however, Daniel comes to look how it goes.

"When are your machine ready to make the first test?" Crow asks everytime he comes to see Jim's progress.

As it is only the beginning of the boy's work there is obviously no chanse to test the machine yet; in the first few days he have to spend most of his time only to build a special made framework to hold the machines own weight to crush it. It is very heavy. He have atually no idea when the shield will be funktional, as, again like with the other machine, every part he have to make himself. It is extremely time consuming.

There is no short way to do it however. He have to do it, or he will get a whacking that he yet have ever seen.

* * *

They take Jeremy's ship with crew and looks for about a week before they find a trace of the pirate that Jeremy means; after looking in different bars and saloons they get hold of a rumor where this pirate might be. And after another pair of days of traveling Jeremy and Leland is there, and is looking for this man of piracy.

"Now, I haven't really met the man, but-"

"You haven't even seen him!" Leland couldn't believe his ears. "And you are telling me this now?"

" _But_ ," Jeremy raise his voice a bit. "I have been told that he is an ursid that just so happens to be a cyborg. How many of those is there?"

They have come to a town in a far away planet, a desolate place that doesn't seem to be anything special. After a few hours of looking they seem to have found their man.

"There," Jeremy points. "I see him." Leland knows that ursids tends to be big, but he didn't know that they can get _this_ big. And with the cybernetic parts the pirate looks even more intimidating. "If this is the person I think he is," the younger man continues. "Then his name is John Silver, and are a good friend to Jim."

"Friend to Jim?" This is the first time Leland hears about this, but to Jeremy it is old news. Jim have told Jeremy so in good faith. "What else doesn't I know about him?" Leland asks with a frown.

"A lot, it seems. We should go ahead and say hi." And that is what they do. " You don't happen to be John Silver?" Jeremy asks the ursid, as casual as he can be. Which Leland thinks is a bit odd, as Jeremy now is speaking to the biggest pirate Leland have ever seen and who might have a concealed weapon in his cybernetic arm.

John tenses up, and gives the two of them a good look over. His eyes clings at Jeremy's uniform for a small moment."What is it that you want? Are you with the interstellar fleet?" Silver answers carefully. Leland couldn't stop to notice how the cyborg's metal hand goes behind his back, surely to transform into a weapon if things start to go sideways for him.

This is when Leland discovers that neither he himself nor Jeremy have anything to protect themselves with, except for one single pistol that Jeremy have in his belt. Leland doubts that it will help that much, with Silver's mechanical hand already transformed into a weapon and all. His heart starts to beat a little harder, and he holds his breath.

"Well, I am, he isn't." Jeremy points first at himself, then towards Leland. "But don't worry, we aren't here on the interstellar fleet's accord." This seems to not calm John that much, as his metal arm doesn't come out from behind him. "It's about Jim."

It is first now that John's entire stature and attitude changes, from being hestitant and tentativ to worried. His metal hand comes out from behind him, and to Leland's big relief it is not a weapon but a hand. Leland breathes out. "Jimbo?" Silver asks. "What about him?"

"He have been kidnapped by who we believe to be Daniel Crow," Jeremy answers. "And we have no idea where he have taken Jim. So we thought that you could help us."

"So he have told you that I was with them? That I was one of Daniel's crew?" In Silver's mind there is no other reason why they asks for his help. Leland and Jeremy looks at each other, then they both observe Silver with confused expressions. Silver sees that they seem to not follow him and get a confused look himself. "I take that as a no."

"We only thought that a pirate could find another pirate better than us," Jeremy says. "But have you really been in Daniel's crew?"

"Enough with questions," Leland cuts in. "We have spent too much time to find you. We need to save Jim. Now, will you help us or not?"

"Of course I help you," Silver speaks with honesty. "I know where they are hiding, but it will take some time to get there."

* * *

Daniel Crow comes into the room where Jim works on the machine and where the two guards watches the boy carefully. In Crow's hands there is a plate with a bit of food on it. He puts it down on the floor beside Jim with a high clatter.

"Eat," Daniel commands.

Jim does as he is told, and begins to eat. The food isn't much to look at, but it is better than nothing and the boy is starving after working with the machine as much as he have. Crow turns to leave the same way he have come when he is stopped in his tracks by Jim's voice.

"What are you going to use it for?" he asks with his mouth full of food. "The shield, I mean."

"Isn't it obvious?" Daniel turns his head a little without turning around. "To protect the ship."

"Yeah, I got that. But against what? What do you need protection from?"

It is first now that Crow turns to look the boy in the face. Daniel have a bit of a thoughtfull expression, as if he contenplates if he should really tell. "We are to raid someplace very well protected. And to do that we need that shield."

"What is this place?"

"Oh, you really like to know that, don't you?" Daniel gets a bit sarcastic tone in his voice. "You don't even want to be one of us, and yet you want to know our plans?" Here he turns his back to the boy. "Just eat and get back to work." Then Crow gets out thru the only entrance there is in the room and slams the door shut after him.

* * *

 **Act 2**

Jeremy and Leland, led by Silver, are on their way to the hiding spot of Daniel Crow and his crew. Leland is starting to get really worried for his son's stafety, as it have now gone more than two weeks since Jim's kidnapping. They have taken the ship that Jeremy and Leland have come with, and are now riding it straight to Daniel's hiding spot. Silver have to stay low, and act like a good man and not like a pirate, so that the rest of the crew doesn't understand his true occupation.

"So, if he is from the interstellar fleet," Silver suddenly says one day and first points at Jeremy. Therafter he points at Leland. "Then who are you?"

"I am Jim's father."

"Jimbo's dad, eh?" Silver's eyes goes to two thin lines. "He have told me one thing or two about you."

Leland wonders instantaniously if it is the same things that Jim have told Jeremy. "Oh?"

"Yes. And it's nothing good." Leland's thoughts are true. "Is it really true that you left him and his mom without a word?"

"Yes," he answers honestly. "But it sounds worse than it is."

"Don't try to reason this away. What you did effected him greatly, and not for the better. You shouldn't just leave a child like that. It can ruin it forever."

Silver says it in such an adult way that Leland couldn't help it to feel a bit guilty about it. That's when it hits him. How he speaks about Jim in such a responsible way. "Don't tell me..." Leland says, almost whispers, but doesn't finish what he is about to say. The thought that have hit him is so absurd to him that it can't be real. It is that Silver might have taken over the father role over Jim.

"What?" Silver asks, a bit angry now. "Cat got your tounge?"

"You care about him deeply, doesn't you? You are acting like a father to him." Leland's eyes goes down to the floor. "The father he never had." That Jim is friend with a pirate is bad enough, but to view one as a father is even worse.

"So what? Isn't it better to not have a father at all? And besides, I did what you couldn't. I made a good and honest lad out of him."

That hurts Leland deeply. For the rest of the journey he stays quiet and thinks this over. Maybe he have acted really badly after all.

* * *

The progress of the shield is very slow, and Jim have barely done with half of it in more than two weeks. And Daniel starts to get impatient.

"It have to be done soon, boy, or it will go very bad for you," Crow promises. "You get one more week on you, and if the shield isn't done by then I will personally see to it that you get skinned alive and find someone else to finnish the job."

The threat makes an very deep inprint on Jim, as he really believe that Daniel is able to carry it out. In the same time the boy realizes that there is no way that he is able to finnish the jobb in this rate. He have to work night and day for the whole week if it is going to work, and that is impossible.

He starts to really see how hopeless his situation is. There is only two ways out of this; either he himself have to be forced to escape, which is as impossible as to work night and day for a whole week, or he have to be saved by someone from the outside.

* * *

Leland, Jeremy and Silver, together with the crew that are under the command of Jeremy, are finally there. The hiding spot of Daniel Crow and his crew is before them. It turns out to be a building right beside the rockface of a mountain.

The rockface bends outward, a little like a shallow cave, and makes a stony roof for the building. That way it is impossible to see it from the air. A few meters away from the shallow cave where the house is there is a far deeper and bigger cave, where they have their ship.

"Here we are," Silver says from their place over the hill half a kilometer from the house, out of sight from the other pirates. "What's the plan?"

"They are clearly not expecting anyone to know where they are," begins Jeremy. "With the portal they doesn't leave any trace, and with the mountain protecting them from view from above they think that they are untoutchable from a suprise attack. So that is exactly what we are going to do."

"Sounds like a plan," Leland says. "I suggest that we are to attack them at night. That's when we are bound to get the least recistance."

"So we wait for now," Silver speaks, and looks up at the sun that is high above them in the sky. It will take a few hours before it will get dark, and who knows what will happen to Jim before then.

* * *

The night have fallen, and the darkness our here in no-man's-land is as black as tar. The tension is as thick as tar as well. Silver, Leland, Jeremy and Jeremy's crew approaches the house. The lights in the windows have been out for nearly an hour, and everyone should be asleep inside.

Silver change his metal hand into a pistol, as he and Jeremy puts themselves by the front door. Jeremy's crew stands by the different windows, ready to bust through on their captain's command. Leland, the only one that is unarmed, stands back and lets the others do their handywork.

On Jeremy's countdown, they make themselves ready and finally to break in with a several, simultaneous crashes as they break thru the door and the windows. Everyone gets into the house with weapon raised and with lighted lanterns above their heads. Leland comes in after then, but stays near the entrance. The inhabitants gets a surprise to say the least.

The pirates is taken on their beds. They get up by instinct, with any weapons that they have at hand ready to be used, but they are a bit confused at what is going on. When they see that they are far outnunmbered they put down their weapons and surrenders.

"Curses," one of them says, and Leland recognices him as the one that have taken Jim thru the portal. It is Daniel Crow. "Silver, you sly dog. I didn't expect you to be working with the interstellar fleet."

"I'll do anything to save Jim, Daniel," Silver answers. "Even this. Now, where is he?"

That's when Leland see what Silver see, or rather, who they don't see. Jim is nowhere to be found.

"Locked in the cupboard in the back," Crow says and points with his thumb further back in the house.

And that turns out to be true. In the smallest cupboard they have ever seen is Jim. He is sitting down on the floor, with his legs folded before him in a strange angle, sleeping after the day's grueling work.

* * *

The pirates are locked in prison, and they put in extra guards so that Daniel Crow doesn't break out. In the meantime Jim gives both the completed machine that is able to make illusions and the half-done machine that makes the shield over to the interstellar fleet. He also gives then the book with the schematics over both of them.

The interstellar fleet takes back all the treasure that the pirates have stolen, and gives it back to the right owners. It is a humongus pile of gold, silver, jewels and pricy museum artifacts. The pirates have been rich, but now they are just as poor as when they begun.

Silver isn't locked in, however; as far as the interstellar fleet is concerned, he is still at large. Jeremy keeps his involvement a secret, as thanks for his help.

* * *

"Are you sure that you are alright?" Silver asks with a frown, surely for the twentieth time.

"Yeah, I am," Jim says, even though he is covered by bruises from Daniel's treatment of him. "Silver, stop worrying. My health isn't going to change just because you ask a hundred times."

Leland looks on the scene with sad eyes, as he knows that he have lost his position to call himself a father. This cyborg, this pirate, have acted as Jim's dad in Leland's absence for, well, he don't know how long. He is a bit hurt that he have been replaced, but maybe he haven't been so good a father to begin with.

He therefor leaves the room without a word, and doesn't look back as he dissapears from Jim's life once more. The boy doesn't need him, and haven't for a long time.

For good and bad, Silver is Jim's father now.


	7. Chapter 7: Adelaine Adessa Wilfried

**Act 1**

Jim is home at the Dopplers, in the room that he have been given as his own, to rest after everything he have been thru. His mother have forbidden him to get out, as he truly wants, so he doesn't know what else to do than to lie in bed and read a book. It is one of Delbert's books, which is about stars, planets and such, so it isn't before long that he starts to yawn and rub his eyes; the book is boring and it makes him tired.

He puts the book face down on his chest after awhile, stretches his arms over his head and closed his eyes. He remembers the events of the last months, that had their beginning a year ago when he just got out of the interstellar academy. His mother have been dismayed when she had seen all those bruises on his body, that he have gotten from Daniel Crow.

She have had no idea that her son is out on such dangerous adventures, and demanded right from the start to hear everything about it. Jim have left out the most threatening parts of his dealings with Crow, but what Jim have to tell her still leaves her out of breath.

"I suspected that you would face dangers," she have said with her hands one her cheeks in a distrought manner. "But I never realized that it was so many of them." She barely knows half of it, as her son haven't told her of every risk he have taken in all of his life. Jim have only shrugged and have smiled sheepishly at his mother.

Jim sighs. He tries to fall asleep, but fails even though he is tired. It is in the middle of the day, and his body presumebly knows this. Instead he only lies there, looking up at the celling. His body aches after the abuse he have endured.

Silver have taken off soon after they have found Jim, but it was with a certain undesire do leave. The pirate would have wanted to stay longer, to make sure that Jim was alright. Jim have seen it in his eyes, but the boy have insisted on the cyborg to leave. The last thing Jim wants was - and still is - for Silver to get back into prison. But before the two have parted Jim have made Silver promise one thing: to stay out of trouble.

"Well, my dear lad, when have I ever caused any trouble?" have been his last words before leaving, in a warm voice with only a hint of a tease in his tone.

Jim smiles when he remembers Silver's words. The boy wishes that the cyborg can come and live with him, like a real family, so that they can spend more time with each other. They would talk, joke and laugh, maybe even go out on adventure together. But, alas, that would not be possible. With the police after Silver he can't stay put in one place for long. How the world can make so unfair a situation.

Jim wish things can be different, that he and Silver can be together. But Jim have a place to be, a goal to accomplish with the interstellar fleet. And Silver seems content with his situation. If only he can keep himself out of trouble. It is he who first came in contact with Daniel Crow, after all.

Jim thinks back on the first time he met Silver. The boy didn't even take the cyborg's hand. Jim was distrustfull towards the older man, and why wouldn't he be. He have been warned about a cyborg just the week before, and here he meets with one. But then, as the time went on, the two of them became friends. The best of friends. Or even better, they became family.

Jim asks himself if things could have gone differently. Could they have become enemies? Could they have started fighting with each other? Could they have been at each other's throats so much so that captain Amelia must break them appart? Maybe, if they have said things differently. Maybe, if things would have not been the same.

But Jim is glad that things played out just as they have. In the end, Silver saved his life at the treasure planet. The old cyborg chose him over the treasure that Silver have so badly wanted.

Jim's eyes finally starts to close shut, as his body starts to drift asleep. And his last thought before he is taken by the dark abyss that is sleep is what Silver is doing right now.

* * *

Silver wonders what to do next. He have nothing planned, nothing worked out, just the old usual of staying out of trouble and keep himself out of the grasp of the police. He have no plans of getting back into piracy, but then what is he to do?

He is at a bar, sitting at the corner furthest in and is listening in on the gossip that is bound to come thru. He wonders if he should change profession, to try something new. Maybe he should try to earn his money instead to steal it. But who will vore an ex-pirate? Maybe he should lie about that little fact. Maybe he should travel to a place where the people aren't so suspicious against strangers, a people that aren't so interested in the backstory of new faces.

That's when he hears it, a few words that catches Silver's attention, from one of the other guests of the bar. "Count Wilfried's daughter is seeking for a person that knows the stars like the back of his hand. A guide, of sorts. She is to take a journey together with some friends, and wants to travel for a few weeks."

That might be something for Silver. It sounds like exactly something that is his way. He knows the stars very well, so why not become a guide to this count Wilfried's daughter? Of course Silver have heard of count Wilfried, he is a rich man that owns half a planet and about six cooperations that keeps on spitting out more gold into his pocket.

Silver wonders if he should write a letter to Jim, to tell the boy of the news. But after thinking on it a while the cyborg decides that he should seek out the jobb first, then write to Jim. That would make more of a surprise of it.

* * *

 **Act 2**

Seymour's funeral is dull and grey. Jeremy even cries a tear over his dead father. But there is no body to take care of, as no-one knows where it is or what have happened to it. Several questions have been directed to Daniel Crow about this, but he refuses to answer.

As for Jeremy, he is now completely and utterly alone in his family. He have never known his mother, as she have died when he was very young. As for siblings, he doesn't have any.

"I'm very sorry for your loss," Jim tells him after the ceremony. "As you know, my father left me and my mother, so as for loss I know almost what you are going thru."

"Ah, Jim, those are very kind words. I guess that the interstellar fleet is my family now. Do you know what that means? That you now are my new brother."

Jim is surprised by this at first. He have never considered Jeremy as a brother, but when he hears the words from his good friend it makes sense for him. Maybe he should consider the other of the interstellar fleet as sisters and brothers, too.

* * *

Count Wilfried's daughter, Madmaselle Adelaine Adessa Wilfried, seems like a lass that that have gotten a little too much of the good here in life. She is loud, self-centered and expects that her every wish is to be fullfilled within the very same day. This Silver sees within the few first minutes that he observes her.

The first pair of people that have come to seek the post as a guide Adelaine have turned away becouse they were not to her satisfaction. Either they were not thretening enough, refined enough or barely just not pleasing enough to her eyes. A little queen she acts, and as a queen she expects to be treated like.

When Silver comes to Adelaine's door there are two men that stands in line before him. Neither of them seems to not have reached her standards, as both quickly gets out shortly after they have entered. When it is Silver's turn he straightens his back and puts on the most pleasent grin he can afford.

Right outside Adelaine's door there are two brutes standing to guard life and fortune. _They are probably hired by her father_ , Silver thinks when he glances at them. They are almost as big as Silver, and as he pass them they both tale a sideway look at him. Both of them are armed with the latest artillery that money can buy.

When he gets inside he is met with a breathtaking sight. The walls are colored with pink and red, from the ceiling there are hanging silk of the finest quality, and there are very refined furniture littering the room. In the bed in the middle of the room lies Madmaselle Adelaine Adessa Wilfried in a pink dress that is adorned with jewels and diamonds.

At either side of the bed are another set of brutes. There ones really are as big as Silver, and are armed with the same type of guns as the two outside.

"Hm," Adelaine hums as she gives Silver a critical eye as he enters. "Impressive size, even for an ursid. And you have cybernetic parts, I see. Show me your arsenal, please."

And that Silver does, without question. He shows her all of it; all the little tools he have for cooking as well as his build in sword and gun. When he demonstrates the cannon that he have, which is hidden in his cybernetic leg, Adelaine gets really impressed.

"You work as a cook as well?" she asks, and when Silver nods she orders him to the kitchen to prepare a meal. That he does, and when he returns with a bowl with his famous stew she orders one of the brutes to test it. "And now, we wait for half an hour to see if you have poisoned the stew. I'm very important, y'know."

When half an hour have come and passed, and the brute have still to show any symptoms of poisoning, Adelaine nods with a pleased smile. She then eats of the stew herself. "Mmm," she purrs and licks her lips. "This is good, even when it's cold." She puts the bowl down on the table by her bed and turns to Silver with a pleased expression. "And you know the galaxies well, I presume."

"I can take you anywhere and back with my eyes closed, my fair lady," Silver answers, speaking for the first time and bows. He tries to be as wellspoken as possible, so that this Adelaine will not find anything wrong with him.

She seems to be pleased with what he says and how he says it. "So that settles it. You are hired, mr ..."

"Silver. John Silver."

* * *

The portal that Daniel and his gang have used to go from one place to another gets into the interstellar fleet's possession. The fleet's mechanics are to take it apart and se how it works, and, if it is possible, make more of this incredible machine. Jim is not amongst these mechanics, as the fleet doesn't know that the boy have worked with it earlier.

Jim is doing fine, however. He is happy and is working hard. He might even think that things are going quiet for a while. And for several months it does; he saved up for the new inn to his mother, and he stays out of trouble as best as he can. But, unbeknown to him, more adventures are on the horizon for him.

* * *

Daniel Crow is in a rage. His whole plan have been crushed into pieces, the golden age for him and his gang have endes in a big bang. And all because of Jim Hawkins. Because he have been so thickheaded to see his own best, to not become a pirate.

Daniel hits his fist into the cell wall with as much force as he can muster. "One day that boy will be mine. One day I will have my revenge."

* * *

 **Hello, everyone. If it is to be seasons to this series, I like to think that this is the last chapter for season 1 (for anyone who cares about it, but hey, what do I know). I do not know how many seasons there will be, and neither do I know how many charters there will be per season.**

 **And for those who wonders if I am to ever bring back "Days", I am sad to report that it will not happen. I am sorry.**


	8. Chapter 8: Cupid's Lost Treasure

**Act 1**

Jim comes home from another expedition onboard the RLS Lucky Star. The interstellar fleet have disolved that Jeremy Walkup have gathered, and everything have gone back to how things were before. Well, except that Seymour is still dead and that Jeremy now lives without a father.

On the doorstep of the Dopplers he is greeted by Sarah and handed a mysterious note that can only be from one person: John Silver. Jim runs to his room so that his mother will not see the content of the letter. Jim opens the letter eagerly and reads.

 _Ahoy, Jimbo._

 _I have got some good news. I have been hired by a count's daughter, named Adelaine Adessa Wilfried, as a guide. I bet you know what that means: that I have ended my career as a pirate. I am now a honest man, lad._

 _Now to some other news. I was in a bit of an accident the other day, and my mechanical arm got a bit damaged. I need you to come and take a look at it. And maybe you can also meet Adelaine._

 _With regards_

 _Silver_

Jim gets exited, he haven't met with Silver for a long time. It have been since the boy have been saved from Daniel Crow. Since then Jim have only got one letter from the cyborg, where Silver have told him that everything is good and that Silver have something going on. _So this is it! Silver have become an honest man._

In the end of the letter there are coordinates to where Silver is staying. Jim almost throws himself at his backpack to start stuffing it with things that he surely is going to need, like tools, clothes and some money. He is going to have a few weeks of freetime from the interstellar fleet, as he usually gets between expeditions. Surely it will take about a week to get there, then he can spend a week with Silver and at last travel back home in another week, just in time for the next expedition.

"Are you leaving already?" Sarah asks when she sees her son get out of his room with his backpack over his shoulder. "You have just arrived."

"Yeah, I need to get out and see a friend." It isn't a lie, really. But Jim don't sant to tell his mother that he is still seeing the pirate that took them out on that little adventure when her second inn burned down.

* * *

When Jim gets to his destination after a week of traveling in his homemade longboat, which he have transformed back from a homemade submarine, he sees that the damage on Silver's arm isn't a small one. It have completely fallen off. But that isn't what Jim notices at first. It is the pink and red walls, the silk from the roof, the select furniture and the big brutes that he sees first.

"What is this place?" Jim asks as he gets closer to Silver. "It looks like a dollhouse."

"Don't say that in front of our hostess," Silver warns with a chuckle. "She seems to like these things."

"What have happened to you?" Jim points to Silver's arm, which lies besides the old cyborg on a table. Silver himself sits on a chair by the table, holding his organic hand over the stump that is left from his cybernetic one.

"Ah, a little accident. We experienced some turbulance, and a big box got loose. My arm got between the box and a wall as the ship careened."

"And your arm snapped? Was it really that heavy, that box?"

"It turns out Adelaine contained a bunch of clothes in that box, mostly furrs. And believe me, Jimbo, those can get really heavy when stacked in such a big box."

As Jim takes a seat at Silver's side, the side where Silver have his metal stump, the boy gives the cyborg a look that says that he doesn't quite believe it to be a reasnoble explanation. "Furrs cut your arm off?" Jim asks and eyes his friend with suspicion.

"That's at least what she said it was in the box."

Jim shakes his head, as he thinks that it sounds unbelivable, but in the end he drops it. Instead he turns his attention to Silver's broken arm. "Where is this Adelaine, by the way," the boy wonders as he doesn't see any count's daughter in the room, or any girl at all for that matter.

"She have some errants to take care of, she said. She is to come back any minute."

And after ten minutes of fiddeling and inspecting with the arm Jim looks up as someone enters the room. The one that comes in looks as much as a doll to the boy that he has to take a second look to really see if she is a real person. The pink dress, with the glittering stones that flickers the light in different directions, only strenghtens the first expression.

When she sees Jim she halts, and gives him a good look over. "My name is Adelaine Adessa Wilfried," she presents herself and comes closer to offer her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet the famous James Hawkins. Mr. Silver have talked a lot about you."

Jim stands up and tales her hand. He also looks into her eyes, as his mother once taught him to for fine people. If he had a hat or something else on his head this would be the time to take it off. But as he looks deep into her eyes he sees an interest in him that feels strangely eerie.

"How are the repairs going?" she asks as she takes a seat together with Jim and Silver.

"It's going well. It might take a day or two to fix it, but it is perfectly doable."

"Are you going to travel home after that, or are you planning to stay in the neighbourhood for a while?"

"I have a week to spare, then I have to move on."

She smiles for the first time. It is a smal, a bit shy smile, and her eyes flutters a bit. If Jim haven't known better he would say that it all seems a little forced. Or maybe not forced, but fake. "Do you have a place to stay?" The though haven't really hit him before, but he guesses that he can hire a room at an inn or a bar. And he tells her as much. "You can stay here, if you want," she offers. "Silver stays here as well."

Jim thinks for a moment. It seems quite nice to just give such an offer, but if it is good for Silver it must be good for him as well. "Well, I guess I can."

Adelaine seems pleased to hear it.

* * *

She have never felt such a feeling. It's like a tingeling in her stomach when she sees him. Adelaine thinks that she might be, for the first time, in love. Jim is dashing, beautifull and strapping. And also it seems like he is handy, when it comes to repairing stuff. He did repair Silver's arm in one and a half days.

When she saw him for the first time she defenetly wanted him as her boyfriend. And she alsways gets what she wants.

* * *

The week doesn't go as Jim have planned. Adelaine doesn't let him be alone for a second. She asks him a thousand questions about his life, where he comes from, his adventures and his interests. She also brings him gifts, like new tools, a new overall, a new toolbox and protective gloves. The overall and the gloves actually are appreciated, as the overall protects him from smudging his usual clothes - which he hadn't before - and the gloves protects his hands when he works so that he doesn't hurt himself - which he also hadn't before.

The attention from Adelaine is flattering at first, but in the end it is unwanted and tiring. All he wants is to be with Silver, but to enjoy the cyborg's company is impossible with all the attention from Adelaine. And Jim can't really tell her to go away, not politely anyway, when both Jim and Silver lives at her place.

When, finally after three days, she goes of to do something Silver ponds Jim in the ribs with a smile on his lips. "Seems you got an admirerer, Jimbo."

"Tell me about it!" he exclaims in a hushed voice. "But how will I make her stop?"

"I am sure that she will stop when she notice that you aren't interested."

But it turns out that it doesn't work; either she doesn't notice or she doesn't care. After the week is at an end he is so fed up with all the attention that he is glad to leave. But That's not the end of it, as Jim first have thought. In the following week, right before he is to go on the next expedition, she comes visiting him at the Dopplers house unannounced. But it turns out to be a short visit, much to Jim's relief.

It takes about he hears from Adelaine again. Jim mostly believe it is thanks to the expedition that he have gone on on the RLS Lucky Star. He is glad to be free from the attention for a while. But that changes when he comes back.

When he comes home he discovers a whole pile of letters from her, and it is not of any kind; it is love letters. In them she declares her love to him, asks him to be her boyfriend and for him to move in with her. He doesn't give any reply to her, as Jim doesn't know what to say. Sarah doesn't know what to say either at the sight.

The letters keeps on coming for two weeks before they finally stop. But then there is a letter from the interstellar fleet, that tells him to appear on the RLS Lucky Star at once. Jim wonders what it might be about, as he isn't to go on the next expedition for another two weeks.

* * *

"Ahoy there, Jimbo!"

Jim looks up with a startle as he goes on the harbor, and sees Silver onboard the RLS Lucky Star. In plain view, with people that knows of his past crimes.

"You're here?" Jim asks. "What are you doing here? You want to go to prison or something?"

"Seems like I'm not a criminal anylonger," Silver answers with a honest smile. "Adelaine's father have settled my record and cleared me from any and all crimes. Pretty neat, huh?"

Jim couldn't believe it. Silver isn't considered a pirate anymore? "But why?" Jim stutters, both out of happiness and confusion. "Why would he do such a thing?"

"Apperently Adelaine insisted on it." Silver chuckles a little more when he observes Jim get onboard the RLS Lucky Star. "I guess she wants to impress on a certain someone." The cyborg pokes Jim in the ribs with a sly smile on his face.

Jim's eyes darkens. "Oh my god - when will she end?"

Silver gets confused. "What?" Jim proceeds to explain about the last few weeks love letters. "Oh, so it was you she write so ferociously to," Silver says and scratches his cheek. "Maybe this love mess is starting to get to much."

"You think?" Jim can't believe it. Even though it is a nice gesture to free Silver from all his crimes Adelaine does it for completely wrong reasons.

"Then maybe it is a bad thing for you to know that she is the financier of this trip," Silver reveals.

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, together with her father, Gregory." Silver continues to tell Jim the reason the boy have been summoned. It is that Adelaine, and her father, have financed the ship to go get a lost jewel of great power.

"You got to be kidding me!" the boy sighs, more to himself than anything else. He then suddenly looks to the side as something catches his eyes. At once he takes a step closer to Silver's big frame and hides, as a pinkwearing Adelaine comes around the corner. Jim glances up at Silver with a strict look upon his face. "Don't you dare give me away," the boy whispers in a hushed voice. "Adelaine is coming up behind you."

Silver turns as him is clutching to his back. "Oh, hello there, Adelaine," the cyborg greets. "Barely heard that you were approaching."

"Hello, Mr. Silver," Adelaine says. "Do you know if Mr. Hawkins have arrived yet?"

"No, he have not come yet, but he is to come any minute now."

"Good. Report to me as soon as he is onboard." With that she walks away same way she have come from.

"Whiew," Jim sighs and comes out from behind Silver. "Can barely believe that it worked."

"You _do_ know that I have to tell her that you are here sooner or later, don't you?" Silver asks as he looks down on the boy.

"Yeah. I only want to push it up as long as possible."

* * *

 **Act 2**

The travel gets as unpleasent as Jim have first expected. Adelaine just wont leave him alone. Everywhere he goes she follows. Everything he does she observes. All he says she takes in. She have even gotten a pink overall and red gloves, so that she can help him with his work. She does so by moving things for him, holding things for him and easy stuff like that.

When it comes to her father, Gregory, he is more withdrawn and reserved. But he treats Jim with warmth, as if the boy is one in the family. _I sure holds that Gregory doesn't have any expectations when it comes to me and his daughter,_ Jim thinks, just as he brings himself to laugh at something the older man have said.

Jeremy doesn't help anything at all, as he seems to enjoy the whole show. "How does it feel to have a girlfriend," he teases Jim one day. "Is it like you have imagined?"

"Oh, shut up," is the only answer Jeremy gets.

The trip goes on in a snailphase as Jim tries to endure Adelaine's company. He tries to tell her time and time again that he isn't interested, but it doesn't work as she keeps coming at him. And between her endevours and Gregory's expectingly gaze Jim wishes he have stayed at home.

He goes one day to Silver to ask for advice, when the boy have shaken Adelaine off. "I don't really know what to do in such a situation, Jimbo," the cyborg says. "The only thing I can see to get her to stop is to speak up with force."

"But I don't want to hurt her feelings," Jim objects.

"It might be the only way. Onesided love might not be any love at all."

But even how much Jim gatheres himself, he can't possibly say as it is in a way Adelaine understands. He is too afraid to hurt her feelings, as she have given him so many fine gifts and have made so that Silver is free from his crimes. She have done so much in a try to earn his love that it seems cruel to turn her down. So Jim have to endure Adelaine's attention, even when he senses that it can only end badly.

* * *

Their travels leads them to two twin suns that slowly dances around each other in a circular, monotone movement. In the middle of this ringdance, inbetween the two stars, shines something so wonderfully strong that some in the crew believes it to be another, much smaller sun.

"It isn't a sun," Gregory speaks when the crewmembers says this aloud. "It is the lost treasure of Cupid. Legend says that it have the power to make anyone fall in love with the holder."

"Jim's eyes bulges out when he hears this, and eyes Adelaine with suspicion. _Is she going to use it on me?_ he wonders. Then he waves the thought away as well as his suspicion. _It is just another stone. It doesn't have such power._

"All halt," captain Cassity orders when they have to a certain distance to the stars. "We can't get closer than this, or we will be teared apart by the gravity of the two suns."

"But what about my jewel?" Adelaine asks and stomps one foot in the floor. "I want it, and I want it now."

"Theoretically," Jeremy buts in. "If a small object, in enough high speed, goes inbetween two suns with about the same gravitational pull it can come thru pretty much unscaved."

That gives Jim an idea. "If I make some adjustments to my homemade longboat I think I can make it quite fast."

"Who will ride it after you are done with it?" Gregory wonders.

Everyone one the crew looks at each other to see if anyone volonteers, but no-one does. It sounds pretty risky for everyone. Jim rolls his eyes, he will live to regret this. "I guess I'll go."

"No," a voice disagrees, and Jim turns to see that it is Silver. "I'll go."

"What, why?" Jim asks. "I said I could go."

"And what if it goes wrong? How will I live with myself if you dies? And especially for something as stupid as Cupid's lost jewel."

"Cupid's jewel isn't stupid!" Adelaine objects. Then she turns to Jim. "In one thing Mr. Silver is right, however; you shouldn't die. You are too precious." As she says the last part her cheeks turns red, and Jim can hear how Jeremy snickers.

"But -" Jim tries, but Silver cuts him off.

"No buts, Jimbo. It's already decided. I'll go."

* * *

After a few days the adjustmens are done, and Silver sits in the homemade boat. Hemmets instructions of Jim on how to fly it as Adelaine comes into the hangar. She kisses Silver on the cheek and claps him on the shoulder.

"Thank you for doing this instead of Jim. And that you will try to get me my jewel."

"Gosh, it's nothing, lass," Silver speaks and blushes.

When Jim are done giving instructions he, together with Adelaine, stands back as Silver unties the longboat from the ropes that is holding it up and flies out the hangar thru the open ports that sits in the ship's bowels. The two of them runs up all the stairs, and panting they arrive upon the top deck. There the whole crew stands to look on the fool that will try to get the jewel between the twin stars.

Suddenly Jim realizes what really might happen if something goes is to go wrong. He will loose a second father, and things might lapse into what was before, when Jim was lost and got everything wrong. When he always made Sarah upset and dissapointed.

Jim gets suddenly terrified over loosing Silver. The boy hopes that everything will go correctly.

* * *

Silver looks over to the ship, to where Jim is. His beloved boy. His very own cabin boy. John surely hopes that he will live to see that thickheaded lad once again when Silver sees how the ship grows smaller and smaller.

Silver turns ahead, towards the twin stars, and sets the longboat up so that its front points straight towards the jewel. Then he takes a deep breath to prepare himself. A few seconds goes by, where he eyes the scene in front of him. After what seems like an eternety he gives full gas, and starts to fly towards the suns.

* * *

Jim and the others looks on as Silver flies towards the stars, accelerating in speed for every second. He goes in a straight line towards the jewel, until he is but s tiny spot on the horizon. For a moment the gathered crew doesn't notice any change in the scene, then the bright shine inbetween the suns starts to move.

"He got it!" one in the crew exclaims, and everyone starts to applause and cheer. It seems like the whole thing have worked. Jim lets out a sigh of relief, but when Silver gets back the boy is in for a shock.

As the light comes closer the longboat gets more distinguishable, and it goes the same for Silver onboard it. The boat have been torn into pieces, and for a moment Jim is afraid that Silver is injured. But luckily he seems fine. Both Jim and Adelaine runs back to the hangar, closely followed by Gregory, captain Cassity and the rest of the crew.

"You can't believe it, Jimbo!" Silver exclaims as he gets onboard the ship. "It was amazing. I gave full throttle, and for a moment i thought that I was done for as the longboat started to be torn apart by the gravity from the two suns. But when I grabbed the jewel from the bare air and came out on the other side I knew i would make it."

Jim couldn't stop himself; he embraced Silver in a tight hug, even though he could barely reach around the cyborgs stomach. "You're unbelivable," he mumbles into the soft tissue that is Silver's chest.

"Well, thank you, lad," Silver says and hugs the boy back with the jewel in one hand. When they withdraws from each other they both turns to Adelaine. "Here you go, lass," the cyborg says and offers the jewel to her.

She takes it and holds it for a long time. She admires it's color, which turns out to fittingly be pink. When it was between the suns and shimmered their sunlight it sparkled white. She then brings it to her chest, close to her heart and closes her eyes. Jim wonders what she is doing, but doesn't say anything. For a moment she stays like that, then she opens her eyes and expectantly observes Jim.

"James, do you love me?" she asks him with an honest voice.

That's when a light turns on in Jim's mind, and he understands what she was trying to do just a second ago. She have tried to use the power of Cupid's lost treasure on him. She have tried to make him fall in love in her with the help of the jewel. He honestly doesn't feel any change. He sees that she is holding her breath, and expects a yes. But he decides to answer with the truth, even when he senses that it might make her upset.

"No," he answers after a moment of hesitation.

Her mood darkens considerably, and for a moment she just stares. Then her lower lip starts to shake, and her eyes start to water. "I don't get it," she says as tears starts to roll down her cheeks. "Why won't you love me?"

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I just don't."

She isn't happy with the answer at all. Suddenly she throws the jewel onto the floor with all the force she can manage. It only bounces a bit before staying still, totaly unscaved. Then she runs away, crying, and as she dissapears she pushes aside the crew that stands in her way.

"Adelaine, sweetheart!" her father calls after her and is about to run after her. But he is stopped by Jim.

"Let me handle this," the boy says calmly, and feels oddly grown-up for the first time. He runs after her, and dissapears among all the hallways that makes up the stomach of the ship.

* * *

It isn't very hard to find her; her sobs pretty much gives her away. Jim finds her in the machine room, on the other side of the ship, crying and quietly wailing. When he sees her he stops at the open doorway, and only observes her. He feels sorry for her. Everything she wanted was to be loved.

After a minute of just silently watching her he finally starts to approach her. First now she notice that he is there, and glares up at him from where she sits, collapsed and sad.

"Go away," she sobs, with tears streaming down from her eyes. "You can't either way stand me."

Jim can't push away the thought that she surely haven't been denied anything in life before, and that is why she have taken this so badly. "That's becouse you tried too hard for me to like you," he answers. "If you are just you, I might turn out to like you as a friend."

"But I don't want us to be friends. I want more."

"You can't have more," he sighs and gets down on his knees beside her. "You can't get everything here in life, and the best thing you can do is to settle for the next best thing."

She gives off a small hick as she keeps on crying, but she seems to understand what he's trying to say. He's about to get up and leave when an odd idea comes over him, and a weak memory comes up to the surface. But not quite.

Jim takes a seat by Adelaine's side, puts an arm around her and lets her cry out on his shoulder. "There, there," he comforts her. "It will be alright."

* * *

On the way home Jim doesn't meet up with Adelaine even once; she stays in her private quarters, which only she have acces to. Jim doesn't know if she's crying or does anything else. Maybe she thinks on his words and is figuring out her situation.

When Jim leaves the ship as they finally have come to the harbor at the interstellar fleet it's the first time he sees Adelaine again. She doesn't even glance his way. She looks horrible, as if she haven't sleept that very well.

After a month, maybe after one and a half, Jim gets a letter from her.

 _Hi there, James_

 _I'm sorry that I didn't say goodbye to you when we parted. It's just that I have thought a lot on what you said. I am also sorry for my behaviour so far._

 _All I wanted to say is that I really like to have you as a friend. And I hope that you want me as a friend after all that happened._

 _With love_

 _Adelaine Adessa Wilfried_


	9. Chapter 9: Adelaine's Birthday

**Act 1**

Adelaine's birthday is due to come, and she sits at her table in her room with a list of everyone she is to invite. It is not a very long list, as it is only six guests on it. Four of them are sons and daughters to counts and countesses, but two of them are not. The two who aren't of high birth happens to be Jim and Silver. Adelaine wonders what her other friends will think of them.

Will they think that she is crazy to invite commonfolks to her birthday? She hopes not, as she have started to really like the two of them. They are really nice, and they are actually honest in everything they say and do. That is a much better treatment that most nobles give.

The four others on her list have been her best friends her entire life. Mostly they have been her only friends until now, and mind you that they are more of her acquaintances than really friends. Nobles seems to not get too close to each other that much as commonfolk, but there are also exceptions to that. And that is really telling how fast she have gotten to be friends with Silver and Jim. She have known the other four all her life but doesn't know them half as well.

Of the other four there is first Eric von Strauff, a 19-year old that is really quiet and to himself. In his younger teens he was quite rebellious though, but that seems to be over now. His parents are strict, like _very_ strict. All Eric's time have been carefully planned by his parents, and if you want to invite him to anything you have to do it very long in advance. Was it really that strange to be rebellious once in his life, then?

Second there is Deadrick Westerly, a bookworm with thick glasses and weak physics. He likes to talk about theories that he have read, even when the one he talks to might not understand him. He also likes to come up with his own theories, that is even harder to understand. He is afraid of germs, and that makes him unwilling to shake hands with people. He wants to wash his hands often.

Then there is Anna and Danielle Goodfellow, who are sisters. Twin sisters. They often wisphers with each other and giggles quietly to themselves. They love to chat of the latest in fashion, and of boys. Especially about boys, which is quite wearisome sometimes. Adelaine fears what they might carry on to others about Jim. Will they say that he's simple? Which isn't true, he can be complicated and difficult when he wants to. They will definitely say that he's dirty, as he is handling greasy engineparts all the time.

Adelaine wonders how this might go. She have never invited commonfolk to her birthday before. Or to anything, really. Will there be disagreements between her noble acquaintances and with her new friends? Or will they get along? She can only wait and see.

* * *

Eric von Strauff stands there, 13 years of age, in his parents' livingroom with hos head bowed and his body stale as an tree. In front of him his parents discuss his life into the last detail.

"And at last, three months from now, you are to spend some time with aunt Samantha," Eric's mother tells him. "After her husband's death she is very lonely. You are to do everything she tells you to."

Eric doesn't like it when his whole life is planned for him, but what choice does he have but to obey? His parents have always the last say in everything in his life, and it is propably always planned three to four months in advance. Always. Once every month Eric's parents brings him to the livingroom to remind him about what have already been planned and tells him what have been added.

He doesn't know what to do about it, as he have been brought up to never speak up against his parents. He is angry and frustrated, but is to afraid to show it. What is he going to do?

* * *

Silver have moved out from Adelaine's house. He have bought his own little house which he have earned from working for Adelaine. It is a small, little house, but with a certain finess to it. Jim gets honestly impressed with what Silver have bought, although the cyborg haven't got much furniture to put in it yet. He have at least got a bed for the bedroom, a table and some chairs for the kitchen and a sofa and another table for the livingroom.

The two of them is now sitting in the livingroom and discuss what might be appropriate to have on them on the birthday. For Jim it is simple, as he have the uniform from the interstellar fleet. But for Silver it is a bit harder, as he doesn't have any fine clothes. He have some money left from working for Adelaine though, so something he have to be able to buy for himself.

"A dress suit, maybe," Jim jokes and laughts.

"Nah, too old-fashioned," Silver says with a smile.

"Then what are you to have?"

"What do you say about a captain's uniform?"

"Silver, you're not a captain. It's a birthday we are going to, not a masquerade."

"Then I don't know what to take."

"What about a regular suit?"

"Maybe."

The next topic is what they might give to Adelaine. It have to be something nice, something that impresses. The two of them tall about it for about half an hour before Jim gets an idea. "Maybe there is something in the library that can give me what I need, something I can build." And so he travels to the library of mechanical history, to see if he could find something to build for Adelaine.

The library of mechanical history is an old and big library, where there is hundreds of schematics to read thru. Most of the books Jim found with Daniel Crow have ended up here. There the boy sits for hours and looks thru different ideas, until he finally comes onto something. A watch that displays where the wearer is in space. And so he borrows the book from the library and starts to tinker with the armband shortly after. He even brings it with him on an expedition to work on it on the early hours when he have time.

* * *

Eric is now 15 years of age, and he have finally gotten enough of his parents constant planning. At first he deviated just a little from the plans, and his parents shows just the tiniest bit of irritation by his action. Then he suddenly drops everything, and goes of on his own small adventures. He makes his own decisions where to go and what to do, and gets punished whenever he gets home. He have never felt so free, even when he gets hard time for it.

In his adventures he gets friends from the most unlikely of directions. He befriends children of merchants, seamen, servants and bakers, as well as children of nobles. Before he had just the friends that his parents accepted and allowed, which was just a handfull. Now he suddenly have 20 - 30 oh them.

* * *

All the guests that have been invited to Adelaine's birthday have been directed to Gregory's estate, which fits better for a event such as this. Gregory's estate have no equal. The house is adorned with different faces and figures, and on each side of the entrance there grows pine trees in two rows. It is a pure dispaly of rished and power, and it is surely a boasting construction like no other.

Adelaine wears her regular pink dress with jewels, together with a few jewerly. Erik von Strauff wears a red suit with a white shirt underneath and with a black tie. Deadrick Westerly wears a dress suit with a tophat on his head. Anna and Danielle Goodfellow wears matching violet and blie dresses, and they, too, have some jewerly on them.

When the party well starts and all the quests have arrived the festivities can begin. As Adelaine have feared ger noble acquaintances eyes the new arrivals with a bit of suspicion. Even though Jim looks like a military man in his uniform you can still see the dirt and grease on his hands and feet. _Hard to wash it off,_ Adelaine guesses correctly. And even though Silver looks dashing in his new suit he seems a little out of place.

Anna and Danielle starts to whisper among themselves, and after a moment they start to giggle. Adelaine suspects it all is about Jim, and wonder what they have said. When they talk hushed with each other again Adelaine asks herself if they are to be like this all evening. How annoying would that be?

"How is it in the interstellar fleet," Deadrick asks with caution. "I guess that you see quite a lot of the stars."

"Yes, but maybe not as much as you think from where I work on the ship."

"So what, you're not a captain?" Danielle, the more refined of the sisters, wonders.

"No, I'm a mechanic."

A collective gasp comes from the four highborn teens. Never in their lifes have they expected to meet someone that actively works with such dirty things. At first they are appalled, but then, to Adelaine's happiness, they start to get interested in what he does. What kind of work do a mechanic do? A little of everything, but mostly he fix broken things or modifies stuff to a new purpose. How much does he make on the jobb? Not that much, but if you like to build stuff it's worth it. Does he make any important decisions? No, not that often. Is he a good friend with his captain? Well, maybe not that good. What's the name of his ship? RLS Lucky Star.

Jim gets showered with different questions. Technical from Deadrick, generall from Eric and even intimate from the twin sisters Anna and Danielle. Silver gets a lot of questions, too, and it turns out that the four noble teens are just as interested in an ex-pirate than in a mechanic. Have he ever killed someone? Yes, but I tended to avoid it. How have he been pardoned from his crimes? With the help of Gregory, Adelaine's father. How was the life of a pirate? Hard and timeconsuming, and barely ever lucerative. On the last answer Silver gives an evil eye to Jim, surely for past deeds.

After all the questions have been answered it is time for lunch. Jim and Silver have never seen such a fine and well made table in their lifes, with is with a white table, white roses and silver cutlery. And never have neither Jim nor Silver ever been served by servants. And the food! The food! It is amazing. And the dessert is hard to top.

After the lunch it is time to play a few games, and for that they goes to the backyard. What a backyard it is. The flowers are exquisite, and the statue in the middle of the yard is of a fine, young woman in a dress that holds up a big seashell. First they played cricket for an hour on the green grass, then they played tennis for an hour on the tenniscourt that is in the back of the yard.

"What a day," Silver puffs to Jim just when they are done with the tennismatch. "I can't remembers when I had so fun."

They then gather in the grand livingroom when Adelaine turns to speak to them. "Time to open the presents," she says.

They all gather around the table in the livingroom to observe the birthdaychild unwrap the gifts. From Eric she gets a new pair of leather gloves of excellent quality, adorned with pearls on the back in a most beautiful pattern. From Deadrick she gets a book to write down notes in, in a silk wrapping that are of the colour rouge red. From Anna and Danielle she gets a book about poetry, where the words within it describe the world in the outmost beauty.

Last, but not least, it is the gift from Jim and Silver. When she have opened it she shows the armband that have been within to everyone, and all are amazed by how beautifull it is. It is of a bronze alloy, which have been polished to such a degree that it shines as bright as gold. On it there is decorative symbols of stars and planets, giving a small clue to what it does.

"Try that button," Jim says when everyone have gotten a good look at it and points to a button on the armband's side. When Adelaine pushes it an orb is created out of thin air right over it. In the orb is a small version of the planet that they are on. It zooms in on the point of the planet which the estate is and, with a thin ring, shows their position.

"Oh, decorative and handy," Adelaine observes as she pushes the button again to let the orb disappear.

There is a sudden knock at the front door. "Strange," Adelaine comments. "No-one is to come here now."

"Maybe it is your father," Deadrick guesses.

"Then why should he knock? It's his own house, he have a key. And all the guests are already here."

Adelaine goes to answer the door. At it stands a man she doesn't recognize. "Adelaine?" he asks, and she nods. "You and your friends are to come with us."

At that moment people, all armed with rifles, comes in both thru the front door and the open backdoor that leads to the backyard. They quickly surroundljud the guests and brings Adelaine back to the livingroom.

"Who are you?" Silver demands, with his built-in gun out.

"Does that matter?" the leader asks. "All you need to know is that you are being kidnapped. Now, put the gun away or you are all gets shot."

Silver have no other choice than to obey. After the cyborg puts his gun away he and the others are backtied so that they can't do anything and provided with sacks over their heads so that they can't see anything.

* * *

 **Act 2**

When Eric is 17 he meets up with an entirely new kind of people. He befrields a petty criminal, and soon after he have several contacts in the criminal world. Not worried at all over his chockens he feels entiteld to make any choice he wants. After so many years under the wield of his parents he feels he deserves it.

He starts to make deals with these shady characters, and starts to supply them with things in exchange for money. Mostly it is about guns and rifles, which he can get very easy thanks to his contacts with the nobilities. He never told his parents about it so they never knew anything, at least not from him.

* * *

They travel for two days, and for the whole time they have the sacks on their heads and their hands tied behind their backs. They tried to talk to their kidnappers, like asking where they are going and such. But they barely get any answer, so in the end Jim and the others doesn't ask anymore questions. They can only pray that they will be okay.

When they finally get their heads uncovered they are in a room that they don't know. By the looks of the room they seem to be in an abandoned officebuilding. There are no windows, so they can't confirm where they are.

There they are left alone, locked in and still backtied.

"Hey, where is Eric?" Deadrick asks, and true to his question Eric is gone.

"Maybe he's in another room, but I can't imagine why they would keep him in another place than us," Jim answers.

"What should we do now," Anna asks, worried.

"What _can_ we do," Danielle answers her sister. "We can only wait."

And that they do. Two hours later three of the armed kidnappers comes into the room. In their hands they have plates of food.

"Dinner time," one of them says. They put the food down on the floor, then one of them proceeds to untie Jim's rope.

"You can untie the rest, army boy," the kidnapper says, and thereafter they all three leaves the room and locks the door after them.

Jim does as he is told and unties the others. They eat in silence until Adelaine suddenly speaks up. "I think I have an idea," she says.

"What's that?" Jim asks, honestly.

"That ventilation." She nods towards a ventialtion drum. "I think I can fit in it. It is bound to lead outside, right?"

"Yep."

"I think I can lift you up to it," Silver says and puts his plate down. He and Adelaine walks up under the drum, then Silver takes her under her arms, like the little doll she looks like, and lifts her up so that she can stand on his shoulders.

"It's stuck," she speaks when she tries to take op the grid. "I think it is screwed shut."

"Not for long." Silver takes forth his built-in gun. "Watch your fingers." He aims and shots where the four screws are. They melt away from the electricity, and soon the grid falls off. Thereafter Adelaine can climb into the ventilation system.

"Good luck," Silver wishes her as she dissapears thru the hole.

"Eugh, how many germs it must be up there," Deadrick speaks, disgusted. "I would never get up there."

"Good thing you didn't volonteer, then," Danielle rolls her eyes.

* * *

When Eric is 18 he start to do as his parents tell him to again, only to get less punishment and to make them believe that his rebellious time is at an end. But in reality he still makes the deals with the criminals, only that he hides them very well.

A good example of these dealings is when he have turned 19 and is out on one of Adelaine's little trips. He hides a bunch of weapons in a box that is otherwise full of Adelaine's furrs. He gets almost discovered when the box crushed the cybernetic arm of her new guide, named Silver.

Lucky thing Adelaine ensured everyone that it was only furrs in the box and didn't let anyone open it up.

* * *

It is dusty in the ventilation, and many times Adelaine gets disgusted by how many Spiders it lives here. _My dress will surely be ruins by the time I get out of here._ At many times she comes to a dead-end, and have to crawl back the way she have came in. In the end though she sees some light ahead of her, and she believes it to be the exit. But as she comes closer to the grid that the light comes thru it turns out that she is wrong; it leads only to a room.

But as she comes near she hears a voice that she recognices. "Have they been feed?" the voice asks, and when Adelaine comes to the grid she sees that it is Eric, untied and without a sack on his head.

"Yes, they have," one of the kidnappers answers.

 _Eric?_ Adelaine wonders, and feels a sinking feeling in her stomach. _Is he in league with them?_

"Have their parents and relatives been informed?" Eric asks.

"Letters with demands have been written and sent to everyone except for the big one."

"Good. Now we can discuss how to cut the ransom."

 _If the others only knew!_ Adelaine doesn't stay to keep on listening on the conversatin, but keeps on crawling. In the end she finds the way out, and to her happiness she feels the grid to the outdoors are loose. She brings forth her feet and kicks the grid a few times with all the force she can muster before it comes loose.

* * *

It is time for Eric to get completely free from his boring life as a highborn child to two nobles. He have decided to cut all ties from the honest world, and to become a criminal. No more rules for him. No more plans in several months advance. As soon as he have gotten the ransoms, he will escape with his criminal friends in an hidden ship and live his life to the fullest.

* * *

The days crawls by, and the kidnappers comes into the room only when it is time for the prisoners to eat and when it is time for anyone in Jim's group to go to the bathroom. If it is the former some of the kidnappers brings in the plates as others comes in with rifles to watch the prisoners. If it is the latter the kidnappers, armed with rifles, takes them out of the room and accompanies them to a small, cramped WC.

Many times Jim and the others wonders if Adelaine really have escaped, or if she have been captured and killed. The thought of her being dead makes them often nervous, and they wonder if they ever may get out of this. The kidnappers doesn't speak to them more than necessary, and they aren't happy to share their plans. And what have they done with Eric?

"Well, this brings back memories," Silver says out loud one day.

"What, to get kidnapped?" Jim asks.

"No, to be locked in. I have been in jail a few times, lad."

"Was the food in jail as foul as what these people gives us?" Danielle asks with a frown.

"It's about the same."

A few days later all of the kidnappers comes into the room and under gunpoint ties them up. The kidnappers leads them then out of the room, thru some corridors and then out into the sunlight. There, outside the house which indeed is an old officebuilding, stands a bunch of people, but it doesn't take long for any of Jim and the others to figure who these new faces are.

"Mom?!" Deadrick says. "Dad?!" The two he speaks to sighs of relief, happy to see their only son alive and well.

All the parents to the kidnapped teens are there, even Jim's mother, but no-one is there to greet Silver. But they understand that they can't go to their relatives yet, ot else they all will get shot.

"Have you all gotten what we asked?" one of the kidnappers asks the parents.

They all nods. "Good," a new voice says, and suddenly there is Eric, unscaved, and walks towards the parents.

"Eric?" Deadrick asks and voices the shock and confusion that all but the kidnappers surely feels. The most shocked is Eric's own parents. "What are you doing?" Deadrick keeps on going.

"What does it look like, Deadrick, old friend," Eric answers and turns to look him in the eye. "I'm selling you off."

"But why?" Anna asks. "Why would you do this?"

That's when Eric tells them what he have been doing since hos early teens, and of the deals he have been making with the criminals. He even tells them about the guns in the box that have sbapped Silver's arm off.

"I knew it!" Exclaims Jim. "I knew it had to be something else than furrs in that box."

Silver leans over. "It's not the time to brag, lad," he warns.

"So, now you know the truth, all six of you-"

Eric stops himself in the middle of the sentence and have to make double-take. It isn't six person that stands before him, but five. And pretty soon he makes out who's missing. He turns to the kidnappers with an enraged expression. "You idiots! One of them is missing. Where is Adelaine?"

In that second a ship appears in the sky and stops not that long from them, casting its shadow over them all. It is the RLS Lucky Star, and on it is Adelaine.


	10. Chapter 10: Eric von Strauff

**Act 1**

The screams of a newborn fills the walls of the Wilfried estate. The midwife comes out of the bedroom with a bundle of a child in her arms. Within the room on the bed lies the lifeless body of the child's mother, dead from unforseen circumstances when giving birth. At the door to the bedroom stands the father, Gregory, and waits anxiously.

"I am sorry, sir," the midwife says. "Your wife is, unfortunately, deceased. But she succesfully made birth to a healthy baby girl."

Gregory, who cries both from sorrow and from happiness, takes his daughter and holds her up to the sunlight from a nearby window to get a better look at her.

"Happy bithday, little Adelaine," he greets the wailing child. He then turns to the midwife and thanks her for her efforts. Then he faces his child once again. "I promise you all happiness in the world. I will make sure that you will get everything you point at and that you will never be sad."

* * *

As Adelaine grows up she never cires, as she gets everything she wishes for. She gets the best toys, the best clothes and the best food. She never gets denied in her life. Well, at least not untill she meets up with a certain Jim Hawkins, but more on that later.

She is a typical noble child, headstron and tends to never give up. Once, when she wanted to get an apple from the highest branch of a tree, she tries to climb up there herself. Even though she couldn't get up at first she tries again and again until she succeeds. She have a harder time to get down, though, and she scared her father half to death when he saw her high up in the tree.

When she was little she was also quick to anger if she didn't get exactly what she wanted, but that changes when she grows up. Once she got so angry over such a small thing that she ran away. Gregory gets into a frenzy over finding her again, and he sends every employee in his care to find her. They didn't find her again until that that night. In the meantime Greagory have pulled his hair out in dispair for hiws little daughter. But in the end she was found, anf once he have her in his arms he barely let her go out of his sight for another month.

When she have grown up she gets a bit calmer and doesn't get that angry quite as quickly, even though when she well gets angry she gets infuriated. But she is still headstrong and wants her every wish to come true. She will do anything to to get what she wants, even to talk to her father into an expedition to get Cupid's lost treasure in order to get the heart of a certain boy.

But after the failure of getting the love she wanted from Jim she thinks hard. She even gets a hard time to sleep on the way back on that expedition. And what she thinks on is the words Jim have uttered, that you can't get the best all the time. No-one have talked like that to her before, and when she finally experienced it it is lifechanging. When she have come home she have realized that he is right.

* * *

Once Adelaine is out of the ventilation systemof the building that the kidnappers have taken her to she looks left and right. What to do now? Where is she? That's when she comes up with an idea; Jim's present will surely help her now, as she have it on her. She took it onto her wrist just a few moments before the kidnappers came, she remembers,and lucky she did that. Or else she would be completely helpless.

She clicks the button on the side of the armband and turns it on. She first gets a picture over the solarsystem she's in, then of the planet she's on and lastly of the surroundings around her. To her happiness a city is not that far from her. She would surely get help from there. So she starts to walk from what appears to be an abandoned town with mostly office buildings and living quarters.

She walks and walks, and by the time she is by the city her feet aches like they have never done before. She isn't used to take such long walks, but she guesses that it wil be more to come. Well there she looks for any authority figure, but she couldn't find any. It's a small city, so Adelaine guesses that there aren't any at all. But what the city do have is a port. She tries to catch the attention of one of the captains, but it takes half an hour before she finds one that gives her any notice.

"I need to get to the interstellar fleet headquarters," she says to him. "Can you take me there?"

"I'm going that way, but it is to the planet next to it. And by the way, what do you have to offer as payment?"

She couldn't give him any answer immediately, as she doesn't have anything to pay with. All her money is left in her father's estate. She looks down on the ground to think for a while before she speaks. "I can pay you later, if you give me an adress to send the money to."

The captain shakes his head. "Sorry, but how will I be sure to get the payment from some girl I just met on the street? But I tell you what? I could give you a lift if you are willing to part with that dress. It would be perfect for my daughter."

Adelaine looks down on her dress. It is the pink and red one with all the diamonds. It is her favorite. She sighs heavily. "Will I get some other clothes?"

"Yeah, you will get some of my old ones."

Adelaine thinks long and hard on it before she answers. "Deal."

She follows the captain to his ship, where she changes clothes. The clothes that she gets in return is a bit too big for her, but it is better than to go without. With sadness she looks on when her dress is presented to the captain's daughter, a girl that is in Adelaine's size. It suits her.

* * *

The circumstances on the ship are poor, and nothing like Adelaine is used to. She have to share accommodation with the rest of the crew, and some times she even is asked to work. Unused to do manual labor she fears that she does more damage than anything good.

When she, to her relief, gets to go of the ship she is really close to her goal. She have to just get from this planet to the next one, which is where the interstellar fleet's headquarter is. She looks around and asked surely a pair dozen captains if she could come with them to the interstellar fleet's headquarters, but none of them are heading that way. But in the end she finds a captain over a ship that belongs to the interstellar fleet. She tells him her predicament, and the captain gets distraught of her tale.

"One of our own, kidnapped?" he says. "How awfull. This needs to be taken care of." And that's the tale of how Adelaine finally gets to the interstellar fleet's headquarters.

* * *

"We need to go faster," Adelaine demands when they are almost there, to where the kidnappers have taken her and her friends. "Who knows what the criminals might have done to them. "She is still wearing the clothes that she have gotten in exchange for her dress, and she misses her clothing dearly, but the wellbeing of her friends comes first.

"We are going as fast as we can," captain Cassity answers, a bit irritated. Adelaine have been nagging about getting there on the whole trip there, even though that the ship have been pressed to the limit the whole way and cut the journey by half.

The planet comes soon into view behind the star that it is circulating around. Just a few minutes after that they are in the atmosfer and nearing the building that the kidnappers are holding their they get near Adelaine sees that her friends have now been brought outside the building, and that new faces have come. Amongst them she sees her own father, Gregory.

"What is happening here," she wonders quietly to herself.

* * *

 **Act 2**

As everyone are distracted by the big ship Jim is quick-paced. He have felt that his rope that he is tied up with is loose, and with a swift movemen the frees himself. He punches the nearest guard in the stomach with all the strengh he have. The guard, completely surprised, drops his rifle and holds his stomachas he lies down on the ground. Swiftly Jim gets the rifle and aims it at the next guard. He fires, and the guard, who gets wounded in the leg, lies down on the ground. Therafter chaos ensues.

The other guards, together with Eric, now have time to react to Jim's actions. They aim at the boy as he takes cover behind some big rocks, and a fire fight begins. At the same time the RLS Lucky Star lands by a big lawn right by the building. In the distance there are also the ships that the parents and relatives have come with.

"Everyone to the ship!" Silver, who is still backtied, orders the kidnapped and their relatives. They do as they are told and rushes to RLS Lucky Star, but Silver lingers a bit to see if Jim is doing ok before the cyborg runs towards the ship as well.

Jim tries to aim for the kidnappers' legs and arms, in a try to incapacitate them, but it is hard to do so when fired upon. He tries to pop up at different places amongst the rocks, so that the kidnappers wouldn't anticipate where to shoot. He is successful to shoot one other kidnapper in the arm before something else happens.

"Quickly, shoot at the building with the ship's cannon," Silver says when he's well onboard the ship and gets his restrains removed.

Adelaine, who is the nearest the cannon, quickly jumps upon to these at and aims at the big office building. She presses the red button, as she have seen others do, and jumps a bit when the cannon fires a big plasma ball toward sits goal. The building crumbles upon impact like a house of cards, and as it goes appart into thousand parts it crushes the rest of the kidnappers except for Eric.

"Useless washouts!" Eric comments and turns towards the ship. "I have to do everything myself." He aims at Adelaine and is ready to fire, even though it is at a distance. But his aim is good, only if his goal is at a standstill. But he's stopped.

"Don't shoot!" Jim yells from behind the rocks while he aims at Eric.

Eric turns his head towards him. "Or what? You're going to kill me?"

"Not kill, no. Only incapacitate."

"Oh, how unfortunate. Because _I_ will kill _you_." With those words Eric turns his gun towards Jim's heart and shoots. Jim, barely with any time to react, tries to get out of the shot's line of path. He is able to move a few inches to the side, and in the process gets hit in the hand and drops his rifle. It lands badly on the rocks and is damaged.

Eric then turns back to the ship and prepares to fire. But Jim, despite the pain from his wound, runs towards Eric to stop him. Jim succeeds in doing so, and is able to grab Eric's gun and direct it upwards just as Eric shoots. They fight over the gun for a bit, but Eric is turns out to be stronger than Jim with his wounded hand. Eric throws Jim to the ground and thereafter aims at Jim's heart again.

A gunshot is fired, and a boy gets hurt. But it turns out not to be Jim. As the two boys have struggled Silver have gotten of the ship and approached them. With his build-in gun out he have aimed at Eric and fired, hitting the boy in the stomach.

* * *

"Thank you for saving me," Jim says to Silver. The boy lies in bed in a nearby hospital with his hand bandaged, and Silver sits at his side. The boy will get out of bed later that day. "If you wouldn't have been there-"

"Ah, don't sweat over it, lad. I just did what any family would do."

 _Family._ Jim almost gets tears in his eyes at the word. _Yes, we are family, Silver and me._ He remembers back when the two first have met. How suspicious the boy have been then. And now they are this close.

"Bah," a voice comes from the other side of the room. There, in a bed with one guard on each side, lies Eric von Strauff. With a weary voice he speaks upon the subject. "Family is nothing to have. They only tells you what to do for every second for every minute for every hour of your life. Dictating everything for you."

"Your family only wanted you to do good with your life," Jim says to him. "But if you didn't like it you should have stood up against them."

"Have you ever met my parents? They are more demanding than the royal family together."

"They surely are demanding because they love you," Silver comments, in a try to change Eric's mind. "Or they wouldn't have cared what you did at all."

At that Eric just looks away, with his lips in a thin line. He obviously stands by what he have said, and doesn't care what either Jim nor Silver says.

"What will happen to him?" Jim asks one of the guards.

"Eric von Strauff will remain here until he is back at full health again. After that he is to go to prison."

"If your parents comes to see you at prison it is a sign that they still love you," Jim turns to Eric again. "Believe me, your parents will be there."

Eric only snorts.

* * *

Once Jim is to be discharged from hospital and to walk out together with Silver he notices that Adelaine is sitting on a bench by the entrance. She seems a bit troubled, so Jim decides then and there to talk to her, in a try to cheer her up.

"You know what, Silver?" Jim says, stops and turns to the cyborg. "I'm thirsty. You think that you can go and get be a drink?"

Silver stops as well, confused at this sudden request. "Why, can't you do it yourse-" He is cut of by Jim nudging him in the stomach with an elbow and points towards Adelaine. Then the cyborg understand that Jim just have asked for; to be left alone for a while. "Sure will do, Jimbo," John says and walks away.

Jim goes towards Adelaine and places himself onto the bench by her side. He sure hopes that it isn't any lingering love problem between him and Adelaine this time, as he likes to have her as a friend. "How is it?" he asks tentative.

"I am sorry for your hand," she says quietly.

Jim sighs in relief. "Is that why you look so sad?"

"No-one have ever gotten physically hurt for my sake before," she reveals.

"Hey, don't sweat it. That's what friends are for, they got each other's back."

"But your hand! It might never get back to how it used to."

"Don't be silly. It will be fine."

Adelaine sighs, not really over it, it seems. But soon she laughs it of and shoulders Jim in the side. "You are a good human being, you know that?"

They both laughs out loud. A certain distance from them Silver stands with his hands in his pockets and smiles for himself as he observes the scene with Jim and Adelaine.

* * *

One and a half month later Eric sits in a cell at prison. As Jim have predicted Eric's parents have come to visit him. Of course they have created a schedual to when he have gotten out. Eric thinks that his life is unfair and inquitous.

"Lad, you look quite angry," a voice suddenly disrupts Eric's thoughts. It is the prisoner that is in the cell opposite to the boy's own. "Care to share your troubles?"

"You wouldn't understand," Eric answers, uncertain if he should tell this entirely unknown stranger about his life.

"Try me." The prisoner winks at him, and smiles. "People can surprise you."

Eric looks at the other man good and long. Then he decides that it surely isn't much else to do while in prison. So Eric tells the stranger about his upbringing, about his criminal career and of the kidnapping. When he reveals that Jim and Silver had a part in his imprisonement the stranger seems to get really interested.

"What's your name, lad?" the stranger asks once Eric is done with his tale.

"Eric von Strauff. And you?"

"Daniel Crow."


End file.
